Checking In

This time of year is always hard; and this day - a little harder. It's your birthday but you are eternally 58. You passed exactly a week after your birthday - a week after I presented you with my Tupperware container of homemade lasagna (your request); a week after you unwrapped the bath pillow and said that your mom would really like it - even though she had been gone for 5 years already.

But that was the end, and tonight my thoughts are with the present...

The kids are growing up quickly. One of them has your petite build; another shares your slightly droopy "Paul McCartney" eyes, and everyone says that Dar is the spitting image of you. And at least once a day I start a sentence with "my mom used to tell me that ..."  When we have a famjam the grandkids congregate at their end of the table, laughing, teasing and catching up with one another.They genuinely love spending time together.   The evident love they share for one another warms my heart and I can't help but wonder what you would think of it all.

Would you tell them how proud you were of them that they had grown into thoughtful, caring, contributing members of society? Would you marvel at their confidence and  resilience, and tell them they already had everything within that they need to be happy? Would you wrinkle your nose at the piercings; tell them that they are perfect, just the way they are; that being their authentic selves is enough?

Your advice gets dispensed regularly, by proxy of your four children. Your voice rambles around my head at the most critical moments and sometimes, at the quietest of times. Your funny little laugh hasn't strayed far and the markers you left behind sustain us when we miss you most.

Guess what I am trying to say is that you live on Mom, in all of us - your kids - and in the grandchildren who speak your name and carry on your legacy of love. So today, on what would be your 73rd birthday, I can tell you that we're doing OK Mom; you prepared us well. The longing for you hasn't faded - we miss you desperately but but we today and always, we celebrate all that you were, and are.

Happy Birthday Mom.