What the Mother?

"Maybe we're all like that with our mothers.  They seem ordinary until one day they're extraordinary."  ~Shanghai Girls


I have been thinking about my mother often lately.  She died in 1994; I was 22.

I am lonely for a momma.  These past years I have learned how to mother myself pretty well.  It sometimes hurts, though, not having the comfort of someone a little further down the path, someone who can warn me about common mistakes and tell me she knows everything is going to be fine because she made it through.

My mother was extraordinary, and it was her best secret.  She taught me to stand on my own and never lose my sense of humor.

 She also was a cautionary tale illustrating everything you can lose when you refuse to feel the brunt of self-reflection.  I have never known anyone so brilliant and so brittle.  So understanding and wise, and so critical and defeated.

Like everyone's mother, she looms large over my Life. Like everyone's mother, she represents so much more than her human form.  I miss her so much; I am so grateful I knew her as well as I did.

Ironically, it is in mothering my own children that I have healed the most.  Being a mother, I know how much she loved us; how hard she tried; how scared she must have been raising us all alone.  Those doubts and regrets from the days right after her death melt in the laughter of my children.

I am not sure what I believe about an afterlife, but this is what I hope.  I hope she has found a bridge table, with lots of Coke, and a partner who finally knows what a bid of 1 no trump means.

I love you, Mom.