Mother's Day has come and gone. . .

My mother passed away in 1998 but not a single day goes by that I don’t think fondly of her.  I was particularly reminded of her at church yesterday.  Our  minister honored those mothers present and those mothers no longer with us.  It’s a miracle that I think so fondly of my mother, actually, because we were not great friends in my early adulthood.   We were more or less estranged after I left my home town with a husband they didn’t really like.  And then in my early recovery I stayed away by choice, even though that husband was no longer a part of my life.   I occasionally called my parents but for a number of years I didn’t let them know who I really was.  It seemed best that way.  Our conversations were superficial which left fewer opportunities to argue, a great pastime of my dad’s.  He engaged me far too easily in those arguments because I was just as intent on being right as was he.

My mother generally looked on, not engaging in our struggles.  I always felt she was secretly glad I was standing up to him though.  She never felt strong enough to do it, except through her passive aggression.  After my dad passed, my mother and I spent more time together.  She stayed with my current husband and me for a few months every winter.  It got her out of the cold but the real upside to her visits was the development of a friendship that I had never expected to experience.  We shopped, went for lunch, had dinners out too.  She loved sports and we rooted for her favorite teams together.  She and I took up painting by numbers just as a lark.  I still treasure the only one she finished.  Mothers are an under-appreciated group.  That’s for sure.  I think of her as my guardian angel.  Some thing tells me that pleases her, in fact.

She left this world knowing she was dearly loved by me.  And that pleases me.