One Week

1936 - 2013

Today marks one week since my mother passed away.  The sadness feels overwhelming at times. I start to cry, but I hold back and stop because I feel if I let go I might not stop. During the last three weeks of her life, laying there in the ICU, I really didn't think she actually might not make it. We all cried together, staying at the hospital day and night, knowing she wasn't recovering, but we never gave up hope until the last moments.

My mother was a complicated woman. Kind, nurturing, and caring, sometimes difficult, but always loving. She could make me crazy....but I wish I could see her, standing in her kitchen smiling and cooking, just one more time.  And though my mom was physically a tiny, petite woman (especially as she got older), she could stand toe to toe with anyone if she felt they were threatening her family.  We would say she was "small but mighty" and always protective of her children.



I am the eldest of her six daughters, and we have a close knit family.  We had a simple life as a military family, not much in the way of financial comforts, but plenty in the loving and caring home my parents kept for us.  My dad was the foundation of the family; the breadwinner and provider, and my mom was the center, or heart, of our family.  She would always try so hard to make sure we were well fed, clean and healthy, dressed well, and happy.  I didn't realize, as a child, how difficult it must have been to stretch my dad's paycheck to make ends meet and provide for all us kids.  I did once I had my own family, of course, and I often thanked my mom for everything she must have sacrificed so we could have the things we needed as children.  She never complained about not having anything for herself, and somehow she and my dad found a way to provide for our family.

She was an excellent cook; a fact well-known among family and friends. She was self-taught and made all kinds of comfort foods for anyone who wanted something to eat. If you walked in the door to her house, she would offer to make you something and then proceed to whip up a complete meal!  That little lady would bounce around her kitchen, opening everything from the cupboards to the pantry to the refrigerator, and before you know it she'd be saying "Can someone set the table? dinner is ready!" We'd just turn to look at her and be in awe....where did it all come from????   Her meals were always so delicious and comforting. One of the things I will miss most about my mom is that your walk in her door, sit down at the kitchen table, she'd fix you a plate and you'd just feel "I am home." My husband and my children feel the same way. Somehow being at grandma's house felt like "home." I think to my mother, making you a delicious meal, or favorite dish, was one of her ways of giving you a big hug.
 

My mother was a wonderful homemaker.  She was ALWAYS rearranging and redecorating our house.  She wanted our home to be warm, inviting, comfortable, and beautiful.  Part of her legacy is that daughters have "inherited" her desire to change up their surroundings because all of us move things about all the time, and everyone's home is similar to my mother's (the running joke among the SIL's is that you need to turn a light on if you get up in the middle of the night...you never know where the furniture is).  My mom would fix up our bedrooms with inexpensive bedding and hand-me-downs, but we didn't care because she made it so pretty...just for her girls.
For the holidays, she would practically "hose down" the house with festive decorations!  Every nook and cranny had some special something or other; and our Christmas tree was always front and center, decorated with dime store ornaments and school projects--it was always so beautiful and filled with memories.  When we were very young, we had this cardboard fireplace that she bought and set up each Christmas so we'd have place to hang our stockings.  That thing traveled with us for many years until it finally just fell apart.  The first Christmas without it was kind of sad (we taped our stockings on the front door) so my mom earned enough money working part time in order to save up to buy an electric fireplace from the thrift store on base to replace it.  The holidays were important to my mother, and my husband and children have spent every Christmas Eve at my parent's house, though the last 13 without my dad.  It is so sad, especially for the grandchildren, because it is a family tradition that we all go to grandma's house for Christmas Eve.  Our families are always together at the holidays; the last 38 years in my mom's current home. 

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My mom was not a saint; she was a person who had human faults like all of us.  She chose to try and see the good side to everyone and everything.  Her family was most important to her and had always been the focus of her life.  She was spiritual, and I know that she is with my dad, her parents and her siblings, and all those who she loved that have passed before her.  My sadness is because I will not see any more on this physical earth, but I know I will get to see her and my dad and all the others again when it is my time to go.  I am lucky to have so many memories to ease the pain and my own loving family to comfort me as I will comfort them.

God looked around his garden and found an empty place.

He then looked down upon the earth and saw your tired face.

He knew that you were suffering, He knew you were in pain,

He knew that you would never get well on earth again.

He saw the road was getting rough and the hills were hard to climb,

so He closed your weary eyelids and whispered, "Peace is thine."

It broke our hearts to lose you but you didn't go alone,

for part of us went with you, the day God called you home.