December 28, 2009, would have been my mother’s 81st birthday. She passed away in June 2003, though, of what was probably ovarian cancer although by the time it was discovered it had spread too far to tell the exact origin site.
Even though it has been over 6 years now, I still miss my Mom, especially on major holidays as well as her birthday. I used to have dreams in which she was still alive, but not so much any more. For about a year after her death, I would pick up the phone to call her to share some news or to ask for her advice, only to slowly put the receiver back on the hook as I remembered I couldn’t do that any longer.
Of course, I still have my memories and my brothers and I will probably share stories of her during the day, probably via email, which is our preferred communication form today. The bad as well as the good, mind you!! My relationship with my Mom was indeed a complicated one, both of us have/had very specific “quirks.” For example, I recently reconnected with a friend from pre-kindergarten days and shared a photo that my Mom had taken of us back in the day. Lo and behold, she was the center of that photograph! I’m all off to one side, with my face only half visible. laughs I can remember my Mom saying to me, “why can’t you be more like little ….?” And when I saw this picture, I realized that she probably wished that the other girl was her daughter.
My mother also had what we called “Remote Possibility Disaster” or RPD, in which she would be convinced that some grave, deathly woe would happen. Her most infamous RPD among the family went something like this: Her brother and his wife were visiting with their small children, the youngest boy was probably 4-5 YO, at their summer camp in Maine. Mom went into the bedroom where my two youngest brothers were staying with their young cousin and said to the older boy, “Please make sure that you close the window, because Joe (not his real name!) might fall out of bed, fall out of the window, roll down the roof and onto the ground, down onto the dock and into the water and drown!” And then my brother adds, “and the window sill was about a foot –above- the bed!” She was also truly convinced that some driver was going to jump the curb and run over one of us. Unfortunately, that has really happened, so we couldn’t really laugh about that.
At any rate, take a few moments to remember your loved ones who may have died this past year, or maybe even years ago. Just hold your warm memories of them in your heart, especially of the good times you had together.
My family reminds me often that dad’s presence is still there because I’m there. As hard as it is to admit sometimes, I am so much like my father it ain’t even funny. I don’t look like that side of the family but I dang sure act like that side of the family. I’m even told I have the “gift” of “the look”[sup]TM[/sup], my father’s infamous, I ain’t buyin’ any of that look. He could see through whatever bs we were tryin’ to pull.
