It is my home, my neighborhood, and my history. It is what I am and where I came from. Embarrassing? Yes Boring? Never

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

My Mother's Birthday - She Came Out of the Closet

What a day of opposing ordeals!

1. I was on a complete roll at work, email directly through lunch, processing and progressing = then bam, out go the lights and I am sitting in my cube in the pitch black. No power from 1 until 3:45, internal panic over what I wanted to be doing - actual work, but instead I did nothing all afternoon.

2. The lack of work all afternoon gave me time to dwell, on the day, my life, my marriage, my violently rumbling stomach that seems to be having a negative reaction to the stress. I want to go to the Ash Wednesday service tonight, but instead I am seriously considering getting drunk and saying F it all.

3. The power comes up just in time for me to get to the bathroom, also in the nick of time.

4. I decide to go home and celebrate my mothers birthday with a little wine, but I get home and my husband is already 1/2 way through a bottle of rum and wants to talk.

5. I inform my husband that I am sick of his self pity and negative attitude and I am sick to death of being sad then he takes his meds and passes out. Then I decide to completely feel sorry for myself and just cry, I cannot stop - there is part of me that is crying for every thing, my family, my mother, my life. I cannot even have a drink and I am such a mess I cannot go to church. (I guess I got a lot of whine! )

6. It is my mother's birthday, I pull her ashes from my closet and weep for her. Sob that I am the only person on the planet that mourns her still. I miss my family. Then the phone rings and it is my niece and one again she has managed to call me at the moment I am low, she wraps me up in my mother's voice and laugh. She again is there for me and I realize that my mother lives through her, and her uncanny ability to know when my heart aches.

7. I hang up the phone and I stand alone in my quiet house, then there was a knock at the door. My granddaughter and her boyfriend arrive, she needs to practice in my car for her drivers test on Friday and as I sat beside her and looked at her. It was just one of those moments that you have to just freeze in your mind and hold forever. She was so beautiful and in that moment I knew I am never alone, this sweet child and so many others completely fill my heart and my life.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

She comes out for me also. I try to remember the good things and then pass them on to my children. Things like her laugh, her sneezing, her cooking and festivities, her worn out linoleum in the kitchen, breakfasts after spending the night and even her making angel food cake with strawberries for you know who. These are the things we should try to remember. All the special things that made her her. Happy Birthday!! to her!!

A Musing Mom said...

Both you AND your mother are immortal! That is a beautiful thing!

themom said...

Such a beautiful end to your potentially dreadful evening. I had a mother one would not miss - but there are times I miss my twin sister, I could scream. I no longer have much family left at all - so I am envying you to the max.