Short Reflection
With my busier schedule as of late, I've not been a regular Facebook cruiser. I still hop on for Literary Mama and The Plot Sisters business (I think I've said this before) as well as to help spread the word about friends' ventures (and some personal blog posts), but I don't have the time to play there anymore.
Yet on Mother's Day, I took a quick break from my grades to put together a Book of the Week post for the Plot Sister page, and I happened to see this post from a friend:
I no longer have a mother to call on the phone when I'm troubled or have a life question. I no longer have someone to show me the ins and outs and secrets to family recipes. I no longer have a quiet shoulder upon which to cry or a person to call on when I need to mend a pair of shorts. My kids have lost a grandmother, my husband has lost a mother-in-law, and my father no longer has a wife.
To dwell on those thoughts would be futile. But I find myself reaching out to her only in my heart, because it's becoming increasingly difficult to speak with her, even when she's in my own home. This is mostly because of her inability to articulate what she's trying to say. She doesn't tell me much besides what the weather is like or that I have beautiful children (thank you, I think so, too.) She will try to answer a question that I ask her, but I'm not even sure what questions to ask anymore because I don't want to make her feel uncomfortable. And that fact scares me because if we don't keep speaking, we'll lose her even more quickly than we already are.
I wonder sometimes which is harder: losing your mother suddenly, or watching her become a shell of who she once was. But then I think that you can't really compare and contrast the two situations. A loss is a loss, and all of us who have lost or are in the process of losing a mother feel it in some way on Mother's Day.
Yet on Mother's Day, I took a quick break from my grades to put together a Book of the Week post for the Plot Sister page, and I happened to see this post from a friend:
His words, while only that, are heartfelt and sincere, a touching tribute to his friends and their losses. I thought about what he had to say for the majority of the evening because I had just spent some time with my own mother, someone I haven't physically lost yet. But mentally and emotionally, thanks to her diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease, we're on the way to losing her, and being with her is a reminder, every minute, of what we no longer have.I have three (too many) friends who each witnessed the end of a life cycle over the past several months and find themselves on this day reaching out to their mothers only in their hearts. Peace to each of you.
I no longer have a mother to call on the phone when I'm troubled or have a life question. I no longer have someone to show me the ins and outs and secrets to family recipes. I no longer have a quiet shoulder upon which to cry or a person to call on when I need to mend a pair of shorts. My kids have lost a grandmother, my husband has lost a mother-in-law, and my father no longer has a wife.
To dwell on those thoughts would be futile. But I find myself reaching out to her only in my heart, because it's becoming increasingly difficult to speak with her, even when she's in my own home. This is mostly because of her inability to articulate what she's trying to say. She doesn't tell me much besides what the weather is like or that I have beautiful children (thank you, I think so, too.) She will try to answer a question that I ask her, but I'm not even sure what questions to ask anymore because I don't want to make her feel uncomfortable. And that fact scares me because if we don't keep speaking, we'll lose her even more quickly than we already are.
I wonder sometimes which is harder: losing your mother suddenly, or watching her become a shell of who she once was. But then I think that you can't really compare and contrast the two situations. A loss is a loss, and all of us who have lost or are in the process of losing a mother feel it in some way on Mother's Day.
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