I still get emotional when I speak of her, when someone says Donna...you are so like your mother. My mother has passed, this I know, somewhere I am aware of it, still...I cannot accept. There is not a day goes by that I do not think about my mother, and sadly...the loss and pain, is ever present, the sting noticeable, even after eleven years.

Yet I can say with pride, I am neither plagued by guilt or shame. I honored and loved my mother all the days of my life. She had a tremendous influence over me, impacted my life greatly. My siblings would attest to the same thing, as would our children. "Mommy and Nana" as she was affectionately and respectfully known, meant a great deal to family. To her friends she was simply known as "Sis".

Cradle to grave

The day I was born you cradled me gently
Smoothing my hair with your fingers
That I may know your touch, and your warmth...
The tears in your eyes spoke of your love.

The evening you died, I cradled you gently
Smoothing your hair with my fingers
That you may know dignity and peace...
The tears in my eyes spoke of my love

With hand all a tremble I closed both your eyelids,
Those beautiful eyes all seeing no more
And I wondered amid pain, what was God thinking...
To ever imagine he needed you more.

If I could write a letter to my mother there is so much I could tell her. I will just have to have faith in her ability to know what is happening here as we live on. Sometimes I am still angry with her for leaving us, I very much feel small and abandoned, I miss her words,  wisdom, and laughter. I miss the best orange squares, pie and rhubarb cobbler ever baked.  I miss spoiling her at every opportunity. Even running into her close friends can be painful, you see there is nowhere I can go, no one she knew that does not remind me of my her, and the resulting void in my life. Holidays and family gatherings are still lonely at times, even with this ever growing family of ours.

We have had two weddings, she now is a great-grandmother. The babies she would have absolutely loved and cherished, as she did her children, and our children, and now their children. My mother would have been amazed and very proud of Erin, who lived a dream, sailing on a tall ship for the best part of two years, circumnavigating the world. These are all things I hope she sees and allows her hand to guide and protect us, as she spent a life time doing.

There is but one of her siblings living and regrettably he is not well. I trust that the others are all together, waiting to welcome him. Recently my closest friend died, that too was a tremendous loss, and I like to think that the two of them are talking up there, most likely laughing at me.

When I think of the kind of woman my mother was, how she lived her life, brought us up, gave us values, stood by us every inch of the way, I know how lucky we were to have had her for a mother. My father was no asset to this family, he was a wife beating alcoholic who destroyed both home and family. My mother walked out on him, a new home, and an eleven year marriage...with little more than the clothes on our backs, four children in tow, and precious damn little else. Pride and courage, love...those were the things that motivated her into keeping us together body and bones. If we were poor, we did not know it.

Mommy never put her hand out, nor her head down. As a single mother of four she worked to provide for us. My mother had the respect of all that knew her, and to us, she was the world, the moon and the stars. She worked until her 71st year, finally retired, suffered a heart attack and died ten short days later. I waked her in my home, I could not bear the idea of leaving her in a funeral home, locking the door on her in the evening. I felt she needed to spend these last three days surrounded by family, it was the best thing I ever did. Close to four hundred people streamed though my house, a tremendous showing of support by family and friends.

When you have the kind of love, honor and respect she showed us, when you are brought up with pride and dignity, it makes it impossible to settle for less, or give less than your personal best. I will never be half the woman my mother was, I don't have her resolve, her strength or her courage and conviction, yet all was not wasted on me, I learned and even taught some of the same. As far as my mother goes....mommy .     /Donna