Reflections on Mother’s Day, the Day You Passed
You were deep and wise in ways I’m only coming to understand
My mother passed away unexpectedly in her sleep on Mother’s Day 2010, so I have a fraught relationship with the holiday.
Don’t worry, this isn’t some maudlin sermon meant to place you under an implied obligation to tell me how sorry you feel, although you can if you like. But I want to tell you something so please read or ignore as your time and inclination allow.
Some people say “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about her” and that’s understandable, but it’s not like that for me. I can go for a week or more without thinking of my mom, and while I’m occasionally brought to tears, as often as not the thought is a funny memory of her charming idiosyncrasies.
Not because I didn’t love her, I did and still do. But even though she was the kind of person who thought nothing of wearing mismatched socks or scooping rhubarb pie by hand for want of a spatula, she was deep and wise in ways I’m only coming to understand now.
She taught my siblings and me something, by word and action, which is this: “Things happen, accept it, move on, you’ll be ok”. And we do, and we are.
