Until We See Each Other Again

This week my mother breathed her last.

My mother's was a life well lived, full of love and selfless devotion for her family.

I've always thought of December as my mother's month. She celebrated her birthday in December; this year was her 89th.

She celebrated her wedding anniversary in December; this year marked her platinum, 70 years married to her high school sweetheart and soulmate.

She also dearly loved celebrating the birth of her Lord and Savior and the beauty that December season brings.

So I'm not surprised December became her month to bid her family farewell, until we see each other again.

Right now I feel like my world has stopped spinning, like life as I knew it has ended. I'm wondering how much one person can cry, when the foggy haze will lift, and if life will feel okay again.

In the midst of watching her fade, I stayed at a nearby hotel. One morning in the common breakfast room, an older couple walked in and proceeded through the stations to prep their eats.

I saw some pills drop to the floor and mentioned to the man that he'd dropped them. He picked up the most obvious tablets and took them to his table where he swallowed them with his orange juice.

I noticed more pills on the floor, ones that blended in with the brown speckled tiles. Together we went around gathering up what had been missed.

His wife commented that her vitamins were also missing, and she wondered if what he had picked up might belong to her instead.

Their exchange turned comical as I listened to the back-and-forth. They finally determined the vitamins did indeed belong to the wife, and she asked him to return them to her. Of course he replied that he had already swallowed them! The three of us broke out in giggles.

I think of that brief encounter, and it occurs to me that there will be a time down the road when my world begins to spin again. A day will come when I begin to catch glimpses of what once felt normal. There will be a day when I feel that things will be okay. That I will be okay.

I'm fortunate to be my mother's daughter. And I'm grateful for the multitudes around the globe who have loved her and been loved by her. My mother had a quiet presence, but her love and influence reached far and wide.

Every week my mother read my essays and sent me a note afterward filling me in on things from her own life that my stories reminded her of. This one is for you, Mom, letting you know I will love and remember you always and forever.

"Everything that you love you will eventually lose. But in the end, love will return in a different form." —Franz Kafka, Prague-born German writer

—❤️