Remembering Mom

I thought my mom would live forever. That's what most of us think until illness sets in and perceptions do a flip. My mother's birthday was yesterday. She would have been 94. Instead, she died several years ago at 85 of a very rare cancer.

Mom had always been the energy bunny in the family, the Martha in the kitchen. When she would come to visit, she would fold the clothes, help prepare a meal, shadow me from floor to floor and fill me in with the latest news of family and the community I came from while giving me a hand at whatever task I was at.

However, when death got it's grip, she quieted. She no longer had much to say. She sat in her favorite chair staring at the TV-- or was it the picture window behind the television where the trees twisted in the breeze and the birds flitted and twittered. She answered questions with a single word or a shrug. Her smile disappeared.

Being the active and chatty person who she was, I imagined that as she grew older and closer to dying that she would share memories of our growing up years, that she would give us words of wisdom that would help us going forward in our own lives, that she would tell each one of her children how much she cared for and loved us. Didn't happen....

She withdrew.
It hurt.
I didn't expect it.

I do not love her any less because of the way she left us.
I catch myself using her mannerisms, her expressions; she's somewhere inside me still.
Life is full of change and mystery.
God and His love is the only constant.
Stay close....