Mother’s Day

I know I post about my mom a lot and you might say that it’s a little TOO much, but that just tells me she wasn’t YOUR mom.

Because she was gloriously hilarious and wildly smiley and wickedly smart and ridiculously wise and only the good kind of sarcastic and the deepest type of authentically loving. She was strong-willed and outspoken and fearless. She was maddeningly always right and at times you had to avoid her until you were ready to hear it. She didn’t have a favorite color or genre of music since she loved it ALL, which to me speaks of a very open and accepting awareness. She spent her life seeking truth and God and love from anywhere she could and was blessed to have found it within herself, which, in turn, made it all around her. She questioned authority and dogma and never took “that’s just the way it is” as an answer.

And her heart – her huge heart that gave and gave until it gave out. Her love existed around me like air. She was relentlessly there. I never thought about it or doubted it. I could suck it in in big gasps when others tried to suffocate me and be rejuvenated. It sustained me and I was completely oblivious to its enormity and impact on my life.

I know my mom wasn’t a saint – wasn’t perfect. I have a mental list of those parts of her too. Top of the list: the sound of her chewing. And you know what? I miss EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.

She was a helper. She’d drive anyone to the airport, took care of her entire family and all who weren’t. She was the lady in the checkout line shootin shit with the cashier, telling our life stories to the coffee barista, and knew each of her neighbors and when their cousin’s grandma’s niece’s graduation was coming up. She loved people; all people. She was late wherever she went because she was talking to someone. And, to no one’s surprise, she was literally late for her own funeral.

I wish everyone had a mom like mine. I wish more people felt as anchored to the earth by their mother’s love. That every child in the world felt loved beyond a shadow of a doubt. I wish this life were that kind to all.

I wish my mom was here so I could be annoyed by her chewing sounds, for at least one more Mother’s Day.