Today is a very special day. It marks the 59th year in celebration of my mama’s life.
Although she may not be with us any longer (can cancer stop now, please?), there is no reason to stop celebrating a loved one’s coming into being. Especially when that person was so important to your world that you wouldn’t be alive if not for them having been born.
How would you describe my Mom? In trying to do this, a lot of adjectives come to mind, and I have a hard time summing up the whole life of a person in just a few.
Quirky. Small. Incredibly loving.
Religious. Musical. Bouncy. Creative. Thrifty. Somewhat of a hoarder Devoted to repurposing.
Going through becoming a parent yourself certainly makes you consider what your own childhood was like, and what your parents might have been going through in raising you. There are a lot of questions I wish I could ask the woman that spent almost every hour of my first 12 years as my full-time, stay-at-home teacher, chef, care-taker and -giver. When did I take my first steps? What did she do to help me fall asleep as a baby? How would she handle this or that, and is that other thing something I did, too?
There are a lot of things that change along your journey of parenthood, and perspective of what all this creating and growing and raising of children really means, that’s something that you just can’t understand until you’re in it. Until you’re living in it every minute, considering the pieces of rejected banana a regular part of your diet, practicing gymnast movements to escape from the baby you spent hours trying to coax to sleep, and being on call 24/7 for your child.
So Mom, today this is for you. Happy Birthday!
2 thoughts on “Celebrating Birth after Death”
Awesome post! Your mum looks like she was quite an interesting person. I bet she stares out of your eyes all the time and you don’t even know it. ( I mean that not in a creepy way lol but you are probably more like her than you realize.) I miss my Dad too and wish he was in my kid’s lives. But it is very cool to see his character traits showing up in them. I’m sure it is the same for you. I always figured our purpose on this planet is to replace ourselves with better copies. She did that and you have too. Happy Birthday to your mom.
Thanks for your kind words, Carin! It’s amazing how much of a difference one person makes in your life.