Honoring Mom

A rainy Tuesday afternoon.  Soft light and silence caress me.  I pour the coffee in the mug--French Roast.  Dark, bitter, and warm. This was "our thing".  Two o'clock in the afternoon whenever I was home, we'd sit at the kitchen table, drink coffee--"Mary likes warm coffee ice cream," she would remind herself--and gossip.  A smile spreads across
my face. . .I raise the mug. . . Here's to you, Mom.

Last Thursday was the first anniversary of her death.  My family came to Chicago.  We ate good food, saw a play at the Goodman, and endured a Cubs game-- fitting ways to honor a woman who cherished her family, the arts, and a good time.  She would have relished seeing us together, her three children and son-in-law.   Family who love--and even like--each other.  The world is full of people who don't have that. The fact we do is in large measure because of Mom.

"You get to go through my underwear drawer," she'd say whenever we talked about her death.   A dubious privilege, and one that, alas, my difficulties traveling kept me from enjoying.   Then, "I want to be launched in a rocket, with my hand positioned so that every time I orbit the earth, you'll see me waving to you."

Thankfully, she lived well past my teenage years, that time when I fought so hard to prove myself and assert my independence.  Somewhere along the way she stopped being MY MOTHER and became the person who is also my mother.  It lightened a burden for both of us.

In her last years, I would remember with her:  The sight of a bright red cardinal in the window on a gray, snowy day.   How hard she tried to get me to like books--

("I bet you regret that now!" 

"No.")

And the words she spoke to a moody 13-year-old me:

"You have a responsibility to make this world a better place for your having been here."
They are a guiding force in my life.

The loss of her vision and memory engulfed her in depression, yet she faced her death with crystal clear courage.

"Put a lot of laughter in your life," she told me during what we knew would be our final conversation.  Our last words were a sort of benediction to each other:

"My love will always be with you."
"And mine with you."


 Amen