"Reflections On Married Life..."

Today is "Mother's Day."  And, although it's always been a day of significance for me, it's ever more poignant today in that it's been just over eight years since my mother passed away.

My husband and I will spend the day together and at some point we'll reminisce and again share with each other our memories of our mothers.  Eddie's mother has been gone for about twelve years now, so we both know and understand the sense of loss that this day will commemorate.

In a bit, I'll be cooking breakfast for my husband (pancakes and turkey bacon) and then we'll go to the cemetery so that I can take my mother some pink roses.  My mother loved pink roses and when she was here with us, I surprised her with them often.  I'll think of those days today when I leave some at her grave.

And also as I visit today, I know I'll be moved to remember the only other man besides my husband to ever visit my mother's grave with me.  And with that, I'll remember her visit to him in North Carolina.  She would have loved him as I did and as I know she loves my husband... Because I do.  There are angels about us, silently watching over us, impossibly loving us even more than in the mortal life...

If you're reading this, and you're fortunate enough to still have your mother here with you, take time today, to tell her about your love for her.  Even if she doesn't understand you or accept you as you might like, don't let it cause you to regret missing the opportunity, for someday, she will be gone from your sight...

This is a poem that I read as I eulogized my mother at her funeral in May 2004:

“And that is dying”

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?”

Gone from my sight. That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

And that is dying