September 28, 2018 – Was it coincidence or
heaven-sent?
I
miss my Mom. This will be a difficult
birthday for me, my first since Mom died; I won’t be getting a card from my Mom
ever again. There won’t be a crisp bill with “In God we Trust” on it slipped
inside with a note to buy something I’d like.
It’s not the money I miss – it is her handwriting – her choice of card
and the sentiment she chose. Sure, I’ll
probably get cards from other people – but not from Mom.
Last year I drove up
to Massachusetts and visited her close to my birthday when I helped clean out
my parents’ home getting it ready to sell. She was frail then and lived with my
brother, Ken.
"The next time you see
me, I’ll be in my box,” she had said with a lilt in her voice and smiling snap
of her brown eyes. She was being honest
and humorous. She always said, “Laughter
is the best medicine” so she was serving up her final goodbye with her type of
“sugar to make the bitter pill go down.”
The whole time I was
hugging her and saying goodbye; in my mind was the thought this will be the last
time I will see her alive. But, she was
the brave one who actually verbalized it for the both of us.
I miss her optimism
and her bravery. I’ve spent a year now reflecting on her life and now realize
she had more than her share of courage or bravery in small things that added up
to a well accomplished life.
I am not sure what I
would say to her if she were here other than, “I miss you terribly.”
Thinking about her
“courage” I went to my bookcase and pulled out a book I read a while back
entitled: Finding your Courage – unleash your full potential and live the life
you really want, by Margie Warrell.
What better time for
me to re-read it. Mom had an abundance
of courage, I need to cultivate more for the rest of my life’s journey.
When I pulled the
book out of the bookcase, I opened it up to a bookmark protruding from the top.
It was a letter from
my Mom folded up – three pages – all out of sequence with no envelope. First, I noticed it was from Mom and Dad –
that would make it rather old so I looked for the date. September 28, 2008 – which was my birthday 10
years ago! Was that a coincidence?
What do they call
that - a heaven-sent message from beyond?
I then shuffled the pages,
put the letter in correct order, and read it again – it transported me to a
time when both my Mom and Dad were alive.
They’d gone out to
dinner at The Olive Garden. Dad has seven
pieces of chicken in his entrée and Mom had the scallops and shrimp Alfredo and
brought half of it home for supper the next night. They watched the movie, “Sabrina” and stopped
at a bookstore to buy the history books, Harvard and Fort Devens. [I have those
books now; I brought all her local history books home last fall and have been
reading them at random.]
“We are catching up
with our fall equinox rain,” she writes. Funny, today, we had a heavy rain.
I miss her letters
they were weekly treasures. Mom
basically jotted down a paragraph a day for seven days, then signed it, “Much
Love, Mom & Dad” folded it and shoved it in an envelope and mailed it to
me. The next day, she would start
another one.
Her letters gave me a
complete summary of their lives – week in and week out for all the years since
I moved away from home – my entire married life. How could I miss her then, when I was getting
letters . . . it was almost impossible.
Later, when she could
no longer hold a pen to write – I would call her almost daily. Soon that became difficult for her. She
couldn’t hear me, and I couldn’t ask much or convey much as she didn’t
understand. Just hearing her voice was
always enough. She always would end the
call, “Be Good.”
I don’t know how she
managed it from heaven, but the 10 year old letter eerily dated with September
28th – seems like a celestial sign from her that I chose the right
book from my bookshelf. I think she is
telling me, “Find your courage.”
“Yes,
Mom, I will do just that. I miss you both. Much Love back.”
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