Since we buried my mother on my birthday, I find myself very melancholy when my birthday roles around. I have learned to let people celebrate me so there is a festive air surrounding the date and yet ... I also feel the need to pull away and just think and feel. Some people might think that having those two days tied together would be so unfair. But I don't. It is bittersweet in many ways but so is getting older!
Life is finally starting to make more sense in your 50's but your body just can't do everything it used to. I've accepted some limitations when it comes to sleeping on the floor or pulling an all nighter. I really pay for that stuff now!
In truth, however, my birthday has always been tied to my mother whether I realized it or not. That is the day she gave birth to me. After the funeral my Aunt, my mother's sister, said to me that my birthday was one of the happiest days of my mother's life. I can believe that knowing what I know about her life at that time. She was in a hard space with a lot of unknowns and a pocket full of rejection from people created to love her.
So God gave her me.
Taking time to meditate on that on my birthday is a bittersweet gift that makes me smile and cry at the same time. It causes me to lift my eyes to God and say thank you while sitting in awe at the orchestration of my life. I weep because I miss her. I smile when I remember her as my softball coach. I long to see her again in heaven as she was intended and maybe for the first time meet the woman God created to be my mother before she was ravaged by the world. I wish I could just feel the warmth of her skin again. That's all we had left at the end after the disease had run its course. Just the warmth of her skin. I took that for granted my whole life and only held the gift for a moment right at the very end.
I miss you mom.
You would be so proud of your grandkids! They are truly amazing people. They would have brought you so much joy. A part of me wants to believe that you can see them through the veil. That somehow you are still showing their pictures to everyone in heaven on a regular basis. I know you would because you did it all the time down here.
But I think you would be proud of me too. I have fought for my marriage and stood up for what was right even when most people turned away from me for what was easy. I have been an advocate for the oppressed while becoming a bringer of peace in as much as it has depended upon me. I have sought humility and forgiveness for the ways I have failed my children. Above all I have run hard after my God believing that He would heal our families wounds. We aren't done yet, but we are moving in the right direction.
I still have a birthday card you sent me many years ago that was huge and sang to you when you opened it. So over the top! But just like you! It makes me smile now, or perhaps smirk and roll my eyes a bit. Either way I'm glad I have it. Funny what stays with us in the end.
Wish you were here.
Love
Andee
