1/1/2005 10:47:55 AM|||Amy|||

This is a picture of my mother taken just before my brother's birth. She was 20, happy and healthy. This is the picture we used for her obituary. The whole photo is one of the most charming of my mother that I've ever seen, and I would scan it but God help me. I don't know how to use the scanner.

We went to see my mother's grave yesterday. I had two of the kids with me, and while my father and sister stood by her grave, the kids and I wandered around that part of the cemetary: The Garden of Christus, so named for the statue of Christ which resides in the center. I took the kids to see the graves of their great-grandparents and their great-great grandfather, and then when it was time to go, I took them back to my mother. We told the mound of dirt covered with the flowers from her funeral that we love her, that we will miss her, and it's okay for her to go to Heaven - just in case she's hanging around and wondering what she should do next.

While she was laying in her bed in the ICU, I had a strong desire to crawl up beside her. My father says he felt the same way. If I were Monkey's size, I might have been able to do it. It's funny but of the things I miss, that is the one thing I miss most and that is to cuddle up beside her.

I cuddle with my kids all the time, and I have to tell you - I am more aware now than I ever was of what I mean to them. I am security and comfort. I am love. If I weren't around, they would get along in life. They might even find someone to take my place, but as losing my mother did this to me - losing me would do this to them - and that is, leave a Mommy-sized space in their lives. My mother's memory fills that space where her physical presence cannot, but it is still her space.

I woke up this morning hearing her voice calling my name. Saying goodbye is what hurts, and the pain of missing her is the aftermath. Soon my sister will go back to her life in San Francisco, and I will be left here with my father to try and pick up the pieces. He devoted every moment to my mother, and he depends on ritual and habit to guide him through the day. As much as it is possible for me to do so, I will help him re-create his life.

Welcome to the new year. I went to sleep last night praying for a better year than the one just past. There is so much change taking place right now that it seems a little silly to make a list of New Year's resolutions. Still. I admit that I have a few. By the end of January, I would like to be unmarried. (I don't know if unmarried is actually a word. Is it? I know I take a lot of liberties with grammar and spelling on this site, but if unmarried isn't really a word then shouldn't it be?) In the case of Amy vs. John - it is the wisest decision we can both make for ourselves, and more importantly, our kids. By summer I would like to have reached a better state of physical well-being. There's nothing like watching your mother die from complications brought on by obesity to motivate you. By fall I would like to have enough money saved up to provide my kids with a lovely little Christmas but still have something left over by the end of December. Then, of course, there's that nasty little genetic problem which I started trying to resolve last summer but gave up due to a lack of funds. And for that nasty little genetic problem - to my girls: Christ. I am sorry. Believe me, I didn't have anything to do with it.

My father gives every person that passes away in our family two quarters for them to carry with them into the afterlife. He places the quarters in their casket (because virtually everyone in our family has an open casket funeral) so that when it comes time for them to pass into the afterlife they will have the "two coins of the realm" they might need to pay the ferryman. We gave my mother two quarters to hold, and then my sister placed another two beside her in her casket for anyone else that might need passage. We joked that we should give her a roll, and I am sorry now that we did not.

I am having a hard time watching the news and did not hear about the earthquake in the Indian Ocean until days had passed and the death toll had passed a hundred thousand. My father, whose sentimentalities are steeped in a variety of folklores, says that the Great Goddess stamped her foot in anger.

I now have first-hand experience with what is easiest for a grieving person to hear, and that is: I'm sorry.

I am sorry. Ineffective, yes, but a lot easier to digest than "This is God's will." I have taken a great deal of comfort in God these last few weeks, and I can say with certainty that the God in which I believe does not destroy so many lives with so much horror.

To all of you whom are grieving tonight, I pray that in your dreams you find peace.

I love you, Mom.|||110459975607596022|||Mom, January 1944 - December 2004