Dahling - Choose Laughter

Tomorrow my mother would have been 99 years old. It will mark the 10th anniversary of the last birthday party. She was quite sick with pancreatic cancer on her last birthday, but you would never have known it except for her yellow skin and the fact she was way too thin.  The photos show her laughing and holding up her cake. Her best friend was here along with a couple of my friends. I made it fun and all about her because I knew it was the last chance.  She would be gone for good in 35 days.

The best part is not knowing how long you have, but knowing you only have a finite time. We all have only finite times, but we are unaware of them. When the universe gives you notification that your time is drawing to a close, it gives you the present of presence. You pay attention in a way you do not in your everyday life when you believe there is nothing but time. There will always be a tomorrow. Until there is not one.

I think about my mother every day. I miss her but not in the usual way. I do not long for her to still be here because the mother I remember is not the one that finished the race. It is the one that ran the middle of it. The one full of life and vitality and laughter and love and advice and adventure. I was lucky because that one stayed around until her early 80s. We traveled and talked and experienced life together. It was really the last four years that were different. Her short-term memory slowing down. Her body suddenly aging.

I tried to keep things lively and fun. We spent every day together and they were filled with laughter right until the last ten days. The sadness and frustration that my “real” mother had disappeared and this lady had taken her place were difficult emotions for me to process. 

“I should not be so short.”

“I should be more patient.”

“She does not mean it.”

“Get over yourself.”

The child in me never left and truth be told the mother I loved never did either. There were moments up until the very end where her reassuring touch, well placed phrase or unbridled laughter would hit exactly where my soul needed them the most. She was my anchor, my safety, my home.

It is only recently that I have come to realize that many in the world were never as lucky as was I to have had a bubble of light as their mother. To have had someone love you unconditionally and still be your greatest critic. I had 57 years of learning and adventure. I am grateful for every moment. And I shall spend tomorrow seeking out the bizarre, finding the laughter and celebrating her having been.