Another Mother's Day has come and gone, and with it, the reminder that my mother is no longer here with me. I fancy the notion that she's watching me, lounging on a cloud or in a beautiful flower-filled gazebo. Truth be told, I don't have the first clue what she's doing. Heaven is such a wonderful place, I'm sure she doesn't have the time nor the inclination to worry much about what's happening here on earth.
On Friday, I set a huge pot of red geraniums on her grave. I like to put fresh flowers out for her and I pray the whole way home that no one helps themselves to her flowers. When I go back out to collect them, I take the flowers home and either plant them in my garden or enjoy them on my patio all summer long...and each time I look at them, I think of her.
As mothers go, I had one of the best. She was loving and kind. Funny and irreverent. Led my Girl Scout Troop and had homemade cookies waiting on my sister and I when we got home from school. She gave great advice and told her children they could do anything they wanted to do. She demonstrated that precept by doing amazing things she'd taught herself how to do. Best of all, she was the best grandmother in the world.
Most of my life, my mother wrestled with chronic illness...but only those closest to her ever knew it. She never let it interfere with her enjoyment of life. I respected and admired her greatly.
My friend, Carol, sent me the following in an email this weekend, and I'd like to share it here, because it sums up exactly how I feel:
MOTHER'S DAY FOR THE MOTHERLESS DAUGHTER
My mom used to dance in the mornings.
A happy, shameless jig in her PJs right there out in the driveway as my dad drove us off to school. She'd dance and wave and grin and I could feel the love well up from my toes to my nose. It spilled out of me - this being someone's daughter. Loved. Cherished. Celebrated.
She's been dead now 18 years to the day since I turned 18.
Time passes and with it go the birthdays, anniversaries, new babies, first steps, preschool orientations, international moves, new jobs, hair color changes. And each milestone is a mile more in the road that we don't walk together.
I am the motherless daughter.
If you are, too, can I take your hand?
Let the part of you that never got to grow up with a mom weep if she needs to. You are beautiful and loved and not a single tear falls to the ground uncherished by the Father God who holds us both.
"You keep track of all my sorrrows.
You have collected all my tears in your bottle.
You have recorded each one in your book."
Psalm 56:8
You are your mother's daughter, created in your Father God's image. And nothing can break that.
- by Lisa-Jo
Thank you, Lisa-Jo. I couldn't have said it better myself!
And, Momma, wherever you are and whatever you are doing right now, I love you and I miss you. I thank God every day that you are my mother.
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