I'm always surprised when this day rolls around each year. I don't know why that is; you would think after 30 years a day rolling around again on the calendar would not seem surprising, and yet it is. Because it means another year has passed without my mom. A fact I still, sometimes, have a hard time appreciating.
It seems like a lifetime ago that I saw her and spoke with her, and really, I guess it has been. Because in 30 years a lifetime of memories have happened and passed. Marriages and divorces, friends and loved ones made and lost. Children born and growing older and growing up. Life turning and changing and becoming something you had no idea it would be- both greater and larger and filled-to-the-brim-with-life-ier than one could have thought all those years ago.
And while I know my mom has not been here with me to experience it all, actually, she likely has been. In the times that I talk to her either in my mind or out loud- expressing some sadness or joy or frustration or funny moment that she would appreciate. Despondent in moments for when she was not physically here, grateful in others that she also missed some of my un-finest moments. But it's in all of that life that I feel her most gone, and it's also in all of that life that I feel her most here. It's strange in those ways, to have her here in my heart and gone in my days. But she is always around. And never forgotten.
Lesson learned.
-a
I can so relate to this post. I still want to telephone my mom, and I often feel her presence, or my need for it. The best thing is, our moms are a memory away, and yes, always around,and never forgotten.
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