Mom

My mother died March 12, 2002. It’s been six years but it feels like six months. The strangest thing is sometimes I feel like she’s here on the earth somewhere, I just don’t know where, like she’s gone on a trip where there are no phones. I’ve been dreaming about her lately, the last dream she was talking about how to arrange my shoes and sometimes having to do things a little different to make them all fit (shoes in dreams represent your life or walk.)

Every year when March 12th comes, I’m caught off guard. Today was no different. I went into my office to organize what I need to get done today and was staring at the date on my calendar. I kept thinking that there was something significant about today, but I couldn’t remember what. Oh, yeah. My mother died today.

I always remember her birthday, but what kind of remembrance do I do for the day she died? I don’t want to be sad, but what other choices do I have? Being sad won’t help. I was sad for an entire year after she died. I didn’t realize that I just miss her being proud of me, because she never said it. I miss her rejoicing over the accomplishments of Emmanuel because she only held him once before she got sick. I miss her being a mom, one I needed and I would like to miss not feeling like an orphan.

It wasn’t until I lost my mom that I realize how much children grow up trying to please their parents. And I didn’t do a very good job of pleasing my mom. And it was not for lack of trying. She was a difficult woman with impossible standards. Now, I think there are some things in my life that may please her. But she’s not here. She’s traveling and I can’t call her.