I cried this morning thinking of my mother.

My sisters (Laurel and Jackie) and I are planning a 100th Birthday Celebration for Mom which will take place on Saturday, November 27th (three days after her official centennial). As you know if you’ve been following this blog, I’ve already written my funniest and most poignant memories of Mom; they will be published on November 24th in this space.

But since writing them, I’ve remembered other incidents, too, and I’ve added most of them; the ones I think will resonate with others as much as they do with me.

In doing this exercise, I have somehow managed to resurrect her to the point where last night I dreamed she caught COVID-19 and was in need of being hospitalized. I managed to wake myself enough to realize it was just a dream, but it just goes to show how ever-present someone can be even after being gone in the flesh for 23 years.

The dream reminded me of Mom’s final days here on earth as she battled and eventually lost her life to brain cancer. There were so many poignant moments then, but I shared just one or two because I didn’t want the end of the piece to be a downer; I wanted it to mostly be about her life, not her death.  But the things I did share showed how okay she was with letting go. She was mostly worried about us.  I understand that, but it’s still poignant as all get out.  Her deepest desire then was that we would be okay.

Something not in the piece is about the time I asked her if she was afraid of dying.  (This was after her diagnosis.)  She said, “No, not at all. It happens to all of us eventually. I don’t feel any differently about it now than I ever have. It’s going to happen. I just prefer to think about other things. And I wish everybody else would, too.”

Then she went on to count her blessings, to say how fortunate she was to get cancer when she was older, and that hers didn’t hurt beyond endurance, because she saw young kids at the cancer clinic who were battling it, and young parents who were battling it themselves, and that’s what broke her heart.  She felt she had had her run, and that she was healthy through most of it, so she just felt lucky, after seeing what too many other families go through.

It was that kind of compassionate logic that defined her.  She was not a complainer.  She took whatever was dealt and simply dealt with it. She was a No Drama Mama.

I think I have a little of that same spirit inside me.  Whenever I go in for surgery, I don’t worry the matter beforehand much. And I recover like nobody else because I have a positive attitude. I’m sure I learned that from Mom.

Anyway, as I began to wake up this morning, my love for Mom flooded me again and I cried.  I miss her. I will always love her. I’m glad she missed 9/11 and COVID but I wish she had been here to see her grandchildren at 18 and 20.  She only met one of them as an infant, and she was a grandchild by marriage, not heritage. I wish she could have shared our subsequent joys, but I’m glad and very relieved that she didn’t have to bear our subsequent burdens.

She was a peach.  Anyone who knew her would say the same of her.

I look forward to sharing the whole saga with you on November 24th in this space. Stay tuned. (it’s even automated in case I croak before then. That’s how determined I am to get it to you!)