14 Things About Mom

It was 14 years ago today, just after midnight, that Mom knew it was time to go. After 8 years of fighting, of being with us as long as she could manage it, she stepped back and gave us and herself back to God.

And while I am okay, and I strongly believe her to be okay, it's not okay. It is not okay that she does not know her grandkids, that she cannot age with Dad, that she never met Jon. I am holding my peace until the Day of Reclamation. As described by Marilynne Robinson:

Such a net, such a harvesting, would put an end to all anomaly. If it swept the whole floor of heaven, it must, finally, sweep the black floor of Fingerbone, too. From there, we must imagine, would arise a great army of paleolithic and neolithic frequenters of the lake-berry gatherers and hunters and strayed children from those and all subsequent eons, down to the earliest present, to the faith-healing lady in the long, white robe who rowed a quarter of a mile out and tried to walk back in again just at sunrise, to the farmer who bet five dollars one spring that the ice was still strong enough for him to gallop his horse across. Add to them the swimmers, the boaters and canoers, and in such a crowd my mother would hardly seem remarkable. There would be a general reclaiming of fallen buttons and misplaced spectacles, of neighbors and kin, till time and error and accident were undone, and the world became comprehensible and whole. . . For why do our thoughts turn to some gesture of a hand, the fall of a sleeve, some corner of a room on a particular anonymous afternoon, even when we are asleep, and even when we are so old that our thoughts have abandoned other business? What are all these fragments for, if not to be knit up finally?

From Houskeeping, chapter 5

Mom in the early 70s

To formally remember her, to praise her at my little City Gate, I list here 14 things I remember about Mom.

1. The way she laughed and laughed until she was unable to make any noise at all, bent over, face scrunched, tears falling.
2. The way when we one of us kids accomplished anything at all she would enthuse, "Honey, that's excellent!" and just beam with pride.
3. The racket she made in the morning. She'd always come in our rooms to wake us singing "Rise and Shine and Give God the Glory!" and truthfully I'm only beginning to muster fondness for this particular habit of hers.
4. The way she controlled the whole world and the stars in their courses from her telephone in the kitchen.
5. The way she was always losing her glasses.
6. The way she worked so hard to stay healthy, from basement aerobics to spinach to smoothies before they were cool.
7. The sight of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire on her bed, long before I started reading them.

8. Her hot rollers and lipstick and the way she smelled like soap and Oil of Olay and Maybelline.

9. The sound of her unpacking her long day at work to dad, and the sight of her hands flying. Because there is no way to tell a story without flying hands. 

10. Her arms up, reaching for God at church. 

11. The way she called her Dad "Daddy" for her entire life, and would follow him around at the lake. 

12. The way she always knew when to leave me alone and when to come in my room. 

13. Her small hands, that I thought were so pretty and delicate compared to mine. Now I think my hands resemble hers. I have mom hands. 

14. The way no matter what was wrong with her or with her kids, hot tea and a walk outside was the answer. 

I'm feeling like a little tea and a walk outside might be just thing thing today.