An additional Mother's Day moment

I was told possibly the best thing anyone has ever said to me the other day.

My children are Whovians.  They all love "Doctor Who."  They must be related to someone :)  Anyway, Micah was laying on my bed at bedtime, scared from something he had watched.  We were talking to get his mind off of the scary thing.  He said to me, "Mom, you know how Dr. Who, when they are in a bad situation, always says 'I've got something they don't,' well that's the way I have always felt about you.  I've felt that way since I was a little kid.  I have something they don't. I have you."

I think my heart just broke.  So sweet.

Mother's Day

This is my beautiful mother.  She always said that she was never as pretty as me.  I think she sincerely believed that, but well . . . just look at her.  Of course, I didn't know her when she was this young.  This is her graduation photo.  It was 1944 and she was 18 years old.  World War 11 was going on, and there were no boys her age in her graduating class because they were gone to war or to heaven.  She lost many friends in the war, and others came home, never to be the same.  My father was in the war also, a skeet shooting instructor.  She met him two years later, and he was the love of her life.   

She could not have known at this time that I would not be born for 22 more years.  Her first and only little red headed daughter, who she gave birth to at the age of 41.  She was the most young at heart of all my friends parents, even though she was much older in years.  Always a good sport and able to laugh at herself.  Mom had a strength that cannot be explained with words.  It was a kindness, but a firey heart.  She made me feel that I could do anything, be anyone.  When I lost her from this earth, I lost the only person who will ever feel that way about me.  That love only a mother can have for her child.

Mother's Day is my day too.  I have children.  Still, it's always a sad day for me.  I miss the mother of my bones.  I ache to feel her arms around me one more time.  And her voice, the reassurance in her voice.  What a price I would pay to hear her say to me "It will be okay, Honey."  Sometimes I dream that I drive to our old house.  The house where I took care of her in her older years.  The house she died in.  I knock on the door with our secret "it's me" knock.  She opens the door and she smiles.  She pulls me to her.  I wake up alone.  

I was 32 years old when Mom died.  Dakota was six and Carson was only 5 months old and recovering from heart surgery.  I used to cry every time one of my children got a new tooth, because there was no one to share it with.  I've been an orphan for many years now, and time has softened the blow a little.  The loneliness is more intense this year.  I am also without husband.  

In truth, I am so grateful to the God who made me that he sent me to a mother like mine.  Through her I learned to see the beauty in the world and the people in it.  I learned to laugh instead of cry.  I learned that "you get more with honey than with sour grapes."  I learned to smile at those I meet, and to reach for my dreams.  Most of all, I learned at her knee to pray and to depend on my Father in Heaven every hour.  

I feel you with me, Mom.  I know you are close and are watching over me.  I love you and miss you with all of my heart!