Mom

Mom went to sleep on Wednesday, February 6th and her soul drifted away from this life she shared with us.  Sarah and I have been to North Dakota and back and now I suppose we get on with the business of living.  We had not seen Mom for almost two years so it is not her daily presence we mourn.  I think the thing that has impacted me the most is knowing that she no longer exists in this world...  that I can't call her and hear her voice ever again.  I wish I knew what she was thinking in those last days.  In comparing our last conversations, we all felt that she was happy.  I am glad for that.

We had drifted apart - distance, choices and life creating hurdles.  Yet she was still such a part of me and I know I will carry that piece of her in my heart forever.  She taught me so many things and as many others have shared these last days, she was a light in my life as in theirs.  Mom was always an individual and she made no apologies for being herself.  Because of that, I think she had a special gift for seeing the best in others.  She had this knack for sensing when the people around her needed encouragement, a kind word or just to hear that their differences were not only OK but made them special.

Sarah and I had a charmed childhood and Mom was a huge influence during that time in our lives including being our Girl Scout leader.  One of my classmates from kindergarten to graduation as well as a fellow Girl Scout, Cara Hines, wrote this about Mom last week:

When I felt like an outsider amid a cluster of cliques, your mother is one I recall from my childhood who praised my uniqueness, what I otherwise thought were flaws and unacceptable. As a result, she was a powerful force in my formidable years; in helping me (eventually) to make my own way instead of following the trampled roads made by the throngs. When I thought I was weird for preferring to create rather than join the games and gossip, she gifted me with a book on figure drawing, which I think I still have somewhere in my mother's attic, and I pray I find it. I still remember exactly where she was standing when I opened it in my mother's station wagon, in front of the girlscout troop house, and where I was standing as I looked at it believing there was no way I could ever recreate the images I saw on those pages. And I suspect she knew exactly what I was thinking because I remember what she said when I looked up at her, "Cara, you aren't like anyone else, and you can do anything in this world you want. You can be an artist if you want, or anything else, but you'll always be successful and you'll never do it the way everyone else does it." I wanted so desperately to believe her, but I didn't then. That vision of her standing there saying those words to me has been one of the things that's kept me moving forward in the tangles rather than defaulting to the "everyone else's path"....or veered me back off it anytime I've started to follow "everyone else" and doubt my own way. I suspect that will be something that stays with me to the end of my own life, and I only wish I'd been able to tell her myself that story and how deeply grateful I am to her. For that, and for everything else she did for all of us. She gave an extraordinary amount of time, energy, resources, care and creativity to those of us in that girlscout troop, and I am grateful. I remember piling into the VW van after school in 1st grade...I remember spending the night at your house on occasion and the everchanging evolving house she and your dad created, how much the focus there seemed to be on creativity, nature and fun...three things I am committed to cultivating and sharing in my life. I remember her rebellious streak and highly individual nature, which I now understand probably made it difficult for her to be in Childress. I remember her loving Billy Idol  I remember how in her element she seemed to be when she populated City Park with flowers, trees, landscaping, and created a beautiful space there for everyone to enjoy and thinking "Wow, we really can recreate ourselves at any point in our lives, and doesn't she seem happy to be doing what she loves!" I remember her with immense gratitude and fondness as someone who inspired and encouraged me.  

I am so grateful to Cara for this.  I am not yet ready to write so openly about that time in our lives.  It was a gift to see these memories come back to me so vividly in her beautiful words.  I think a lot about what I want to write...  I want to document Mom somehow for myself but also for Milo.  He really did not know her at all and I want him to understand her in some way when he is older.   Though I don't yet have the words, they are coming together in my mind just as my memories of Mom are coalescing.  As those memories become whole and the words come together...  then I will share (hopefully soon).