Birthday without Mom

Today is my birthday. I like my birthday, both the specific day it falls on and the privilege of growing older. I am 51 and happy about it.

Mom

This particular birthday is sad too: it's the first one of my whole life that my Mom hasn't been in the world. She died last October, late at night in the nursing home... She would have been 84 in the morning.  She wouldn't have known it--she didn't know who she was, she didn't know who any of us were, she wanted to go home but she didn't know where home was. So it wasn't sad that by leaving us she didn't have to be confused and frightened anymore.

What's sad is that the whole, complete person she was is gone. Today there would have been a card from her--always a sweet, pretty, flowery one with the nicest message. Some years I was able to drive up north and spend May 7 with her and my sister; if I couldn't I called her on the phone and always said the same thing, "Thank you for having me!" because it made her laugh. And she always answered, "Well, it was my pleasure."

She taught me how to embroider when I was 6 years old, to crochet when I was 9, and to sew my own clothes when I was 14. She could draw pictures of pretty ladies in ruffled gowns, she sang in a beautiful soprano voice, she planted lilac bushes at each new home she lived in. She loved Glenn Miller, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and all movies with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Toward the end of her life she'd forgotten many things, but she could still play poker.  

Today I am going to spend a little part of the morning at an antique store and see if there's some relic from my childhood I can add to my collection. Then I'll cut out the pieces for a cloth doll, and make a treat to take to work with me. I'll work my reference desk shift, and when I come home from work, my husband and son will take me to dinner anywhere I want to go, and I'll pick Cracker Barrel. And maybe I can work on the doll some more before bedtime. It will be a wonderful day, it just won't include my Mom, and I have to get used to it.

Even so, I know that I am one of the lucky ones. Other people didn't get to have a kind and loving mother like mine was, and that is far sadder than to have had one and lost her. I hope life is finding other ways to bless them.