Mother's Day

Although I am a mother myself I always think of my own mother on Mother's Day. Somehow it has and always be her day and not mine. This coming Saturday is the first Mother's Day since my mom passed away and as you can imagine she has been on my heart a great deal lately. Most days I am fine as I move through the daily routine of life, but sometimes in the small moments I find myself very sad. I have opened myself up to the grief...let it come and wash over me. Thankfully, it surrenders just as it overwhelms and I am able to walk on through the days.

I think what makes me miss my mother so much in this season is I feel like she was just becoming the mother she always wanted to be. As some of you know my own relationship with my mother was complicated but I have always loved and respected her. She was raised in home where love and kindness were expressed by providing the practical needs for a child, not by hugs and kisses. I know my mother worked hard to overcome her own austere beginnings but I don't think she was every really able to express all the love she felt until my daughter Cavender was born. As a grandmother my mom fully was able to abandon herself in her relationship with her granddaughter. It was beautiful to watch and has changed my heart forever. I hope Cavender will remember the time she had with Grammie. Even if her mind looses some of the memories I know her heart will always be filled by that special love.

A Paper Problem

It seems like forever since I have sat down and taken the time to post to this blog. However, I have written several posts that have only bounced around the recesses of my mind. Too bad I never made time to capture these thoughts before they dissipated into to do or shopping lists.

Along that vein I have recently been coming to terms with my paper problem. I currently have five started journals, one quote book, this under-posted blog, a half used planner, and one notebook for writing ideas. This does not count the myriad of individual papers tucked here and there, inside books, my planner, and stacked to look at later. I am not satisfied with a technology based communication model. I love the feel of paper, the smell of opening a book, and the soothing glide of a pencil across the page (the spelling challenged like myself always use pencils).

So what have I done to get control of this madness? Why, I have bought a new journal--it will really work this time, or so I have been chanting to myself over and over to will it to be true.

These are the moments when I envy the self discipline of my husband and battle the inner dialogue of failure that comes so naturally to me.

Since my mom passed away I have come to realize there was so much about her I didn't know. One day, I want Cavender to have both the memories of our own life conversations, and the scraps of my own mental ramblings for her to process as she will.

Besides the way my memory is declining, probably due to the number of Diet Cokes I drink, I better collect what few creative moments I have left.

A Little Thank You Goes a Long Way

I have always been terrible at writing thank you notes. I have the best intentions/fantasies of writing the most perfect, timely, and touching note in return for every kind gesture I receive. My thank you note anxiety is so severe that I am often thrown into the bowels of guilt because I receive a thank you note from someone so promptly that I wallow in the memory of all my unwritten notes through the years. I find comfortable excuses (I can't spell, I have messy handwriting, I don't have stamps) to wrap around me for awhile. Yet, these wear thin and the guilt always finds a way in through the crevices of my threadbare excuses.

I now have a large green box full of notes for me to write.

It stares at me from the chair by our door.
For almost a week it has sat mocking me for the task that I have left of undone.

But my heart is afraid of opening that big green box for it was the box that the funeral director handed me as he walked out the door after my mom's funeral.

These are no ordinary notes. These notes represent my mother, who took thank you notes very seriously. What can I say to our/ my/ her/ their friends and family that poured out so much love to us through meals, flowers, cards, calls, and visits. What can I say to those who drove up to my parent’s house in those final days to say their goodbyes to our Lela but were thoughtful enough in their own pain to take care of us?

I am afraid of that big green box because I know when I open it my heart will break.

I am left to write the thank you notes for my mother who always wrote them so well.

I will do my best.

Three Coffins and No Funeral

I saw three people die this week.

This is what happens when you spend much of your time at a hospice center.

When I went through those hospice doors for the first time I expected to exit them like the families I saw through the week, who walked slowly out with broken faces behind the covered body of someone they loved...

The doctor called in the family because my mom was not expected to live more than a day. She did. She is very tough.

She was moved to a hospice facility because she was not expected to live more than a few days. She did. She is very tough.

Now my frail, fragile mother keeps outliving the defined 'term' of her terminal disease.

I am thankful for those term extensions because we got to share some moments I have packed away in my heart...for the years ahead when I won't have her anymore.

Like every other important thing in her life, my mother is dying independently, on her own terms, and with a touch of classy stubbornness that makes her so special.

Now she is at home to spend the rest of her days. She knows it all defined by God's 'term' after all.

Bodacious Broads

Setting: Mother's Day 2008; Dacula, GA

Characters: Rebecca (me), Roxanne (sister), and Lela (mother), various other wonderful ladies of the Bodacious Broads Chapter of The Red Hat Society and their lovely daughters and daughters-in-law.

Exposition: Two hour drive with my mom, sister, and broken foot cross country to avoid Atlanta traffic.

Climax: Adorning our pink (or red if you are over 50 years old) hats and walking up to a predominately men’s golf club for our annual Mother’s Day brunch.

Resolution: Realization that the heavy burden of expectation of my attendance at the annual event (“come hell or high water” as my father says) was worth the hassle of the long drive with said broken foot (i.e. hell or high water) to spend those moments with my precious mother and her amazing friends.

Sequel: The hope that next year will bring together those same faces from all over the country to honor our mothers and share in their friendship. The prayer that one day I will share a similar moment with my own daughter.