memorial to my mother | How to stay sane on PAUSE

Admittedly my blog has been sorely neglected lately! There are many reasons for this but only one good reason to resume writing. This would be that perhaps I could help just one person get through a tough time by reading my words…then it has served it’s purpose!

It has now been 33 years since my Mom passed away… It is so hard to believe that it could actually have been that many years since that Saturday in 1986. Here is my original blog post that was dated May 2011. I feel for anyone who has experienced a similar loss or is going through it right now. The Sunday after my Mother’s funeral was Mother’s Day and continues to be a difficult time every year. I wish I could tell you the pain subsides. You just learn to lean on the Lord a little more each year…

It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday morning. Perfect really. The weather was glorious. Clear and crisp with birds chirping and butterflies flitting around. The sound of grass being mowed filled the distance. Flowers bloomed and lawn sprinklers hissed. May is such a pretty month in Tennessee. Then the phone rang. I didn’t want to answer it. I knew who it was. As I answered it, the person on the other end said in a very upbeat tone “I just wanted you to know that Mrs. Todd just left us”. I said “Thank you for calling”.

Mom was 63 and I was 30. She was gone too early and I wondered what I would do without my Mother! I even asked her about 2 weeks before she left. It was a selfish thing for me to say to my dying parent. She could not have known the impact that her words would have on me and do to this very day…..

Through my tears my question to her was “Mom, what am I suppose to do without my Mother for the rest of my life? I’m thirty years old!” She replied in a still small voice but with strength unimaginable “I don’t know darling, but I know the Lord will help you through it”……And He has! Unbelievable that it has been 25 years on May 3rd. Unbelievable that my daughter was only 5 years old then and a pre-schooler. She is now a grown woman and a Mommy herself. Unbelievable that somehow, someway I have been able to navigate the past 25 years “without” her! She was after all my best friend and my Mother. By far the hardest thing I have ever gone through in my life was watching the slow deterioration of her body as Ovarian Cancer stole her from us and the eventual loss of her everyday presence in my life. But even so….her spirit lives on in me. It was about 8 months later when I found myself at a cross-roads regarding my decision to return to college or not. I was 31 by then and a single Mom of a beautiful 5-year-old daughter… and in my deepest time of need I cried out to my Mom. I had made a commitment to return to College to finish the degree I had started 12 years prior! I was panic-stricken as I thought about what was ahead of me…. I said out loud (as if she could hear me) “Mother, what HAVE I gotten myself into????”. That’s when it happened. A warm peaceful feeling blanketed my body from head to toe, a comfort like I know I had when she covered me as a child in my crib… and her “voice” came into my head saying “You can do anything you put your mind to!” I don’t know if it was her spirit speaking to me or just my recollection of the MILLION times that she had said that to me in my lifetime, either way it was all I needed to push me through that moment of doubt. I will quickly tell you that I took those eternal words of advice from my Momma and proceeded to excel beyond my own belief. I finished 4 years of college in 2 and 1/2 years, graduating Cum Laude with a 4.0 GPA in my major course of study at age 33 as a single mother! I’m not boasting, I’m just saying that if you think we as Moms don’t have an everlasting effect on our children….even after we are “gone”…think again! Mother’s Day is a tough day for me… and next Sunday represents 26 such holidays without her. I still miss her so…

I dedicate my blog to my Mother and all that she has meant to me during her life and everyday for the past 25 years! I thank her for all the inspiration that she brought to my life and appreciate the way that she prepared me to be the best Mom and Grandmother (“Gigi”) that I could possibly be. After all it isn’t so much what we TELL our children to do…as it is what we SHOW them. This is written by a grateful daughter…. I love you Mom.

A few years ago someone sent me this poem in an email:

This is a truly BEAUTIFUL piece. Please
read this at a slow pace, digesting every word and in
leisure…do not hurry….this is a treasure…

For those lucky to still be blessed with your Mom,
this is beautiful. For those of us who aren’t, this is
even more beautiful. For those who are moms, you’ll love this.

MOTHER

The young mother set her foot on the path of life. “Is
this the long way?” she asked. And the guide said: “Yes, and the way is hard.
And you will be old before you reach the end of it.. But
the end will be better than the beginning.”

But the young mother was happy, and she would not
believe that anything could be better than these years. So she
played with her children, and gathered flowers for
them along the way, and bathed them in the clear streams; and
the sun shone on them, and the young Mother cried,
“Nothing will ever be lovelier than this.”

Then the night came, and the storm, and the path was
dark, and the children shook with fear and cold, and the mother
drew them close and covered them with her mantle, and the children said,
“Mother, we are not afraid, for you are near, and no harm can come.”

And the morning came, and there was a hill ahead, and
the children climbed and grew weary, and the mother was weary.
But at all times she said to the children,” A little patience and we are there.”
So the children climbed, and when they reached the top
they said, “Mother, we would not have done it without you.”

And the mother, when she lay down at night looked up
at the stars and said, “This is a better day than the last, for my
children have learned fortitude in the face of hardness. Yesterday I gave them courage.
Today, I’ve given them strength.”

And the next day came strange clouds which darkened
the earth, clouds of war and hate and evil, and the children groped
and stumbled, and the mother said: “Look up. Lift your eyes to the light.
” And the children looked and saw above the clouds
an everlasting glory, and it guided them beyond the
darkness. And that night the Mother said,
“This is the best day of all, for
I have shown my children God.”

And the days went on, and the weeks and the months and
the years, and the mother grew old and she was little and bent.
But her children were tall and strong, and walked with
courage. And when the way was rough, they lifted her,
for she was as light as a feather; and at last they came to a hill,
and beyond they could see a shining road and golden gates flung wide. And
mother said, “I have reached the end of my journey. And now I know the end
is better than the beginning, for my children can
walk alone, and their children after them.”

And the children said, “You will always walk with us,
Mother, even when you have gone through the gates.”
And they stood and watched her as she went on alone, and the gates
closed after her. And they said: “We cannot see her
but she is with us still. A Mother like ours is more than a memory. She is a living presence…….”

Your Mother is always with you…. She’s the whisper
of the leaves as you walk down the street; she’s the smell of bleach
in your freshly laundered socks; she’s the cool hand
on your brow when you’re not well. Your Mother lives
inside your laughter. And she’s crystallized in every tear drop.
She’s the place you came from, your first home; and
she’s the map you follow with every step you take. She’s your first love
and your first heartbreak, and nothing on earth can
separate you.

Not time, not space… not even death!