This Mom

I’m going to a Celebration of Life on Friday, celebrating the life of the mother of a good friend of my daughter. My daughter’s friend and his sister played on the high school tennis team together, and he and my daughter have always traveled in the same social circles since high school and beyond. My heart is bleeding for this family.

I did not know this woman very well. We only saw each other at tennis matches, but she was always kind and easy to talk to, and she clearly enjoyed watching her children play tennis. She was one of “us” – moms doing our best to support our children in their activities and interests. Her life clearly centered around her family.

At Christmastime, my daughter told us that this family was so excited that this mom was going to make it to Christmas. She had incurable cancer and by all accounts, it was a miracle that she was going to make it to the end of the year. Her family was thrilled to get to celebrate the holidays with her.

Frequently throughout this year, I would ask my daughter if she had any news on this woman’s health, and the report always seemed to be that she was holding steady. She made it to her daughter’s high school graduation, and then sadly, a few weeks ago, she started rapidly declining. This mom died a little more than a week ago.

It did not surprise me that this mom found the strength to hold on until her youngest child’s graduation from high school. It’s what all of us moms want at the very least, right? We want to make sure that we have successfully “launched” all of our children into being capable adults. We want to see it to the end. It’s our purpose. It’s our duty. It’s our innate instinct. It’s honestly primal. I remember feeling the biggest sense of relief, when our youngest child, our daughter turned 18, and then graduated from high school. Of course, I also felt so much pride and love and all of the mixed-bag feelings that come with big events like these in life, but the “relief” was personal. It wasn’t relief in the sense that I didn’t really have to actively parent on a daily basis any longer (although that is its own special kind of exhalation), but it was more a sense of relief that I had achieved my duties. I had honored my commitments. That me, my husband and the divine forces that be, had gotten a new generation of our family to the starting gate of adulthood. I had completed the mission. I had finished the race.

When I have talked to friends about death, no woman I know seems to fear death. We do fear the death of our children. We do fear missing out on all of the vicarious joys our children will experience in their own lifetimes. My heart aches that this dear woman doesn’t get to go to the victory parties of her children’s weddings, witnessing the births of her grandchildren, growing old with her husband. She got the shaft. Her life got cut short from getting to enjoy the more relaxing “golden” years. Her family misses her and they will miss her for the rest of their lives. That hurts. But she still shines. She found the vital, unearthly strength inside of herself (which I think all of us mothers have been shocked to discover inside of our own selves, from time to time), to hold on for the final lap. She saw her daughter to the finish line. Now, she can rest in peace.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1535. How are you different from most people? (Let me the count the ways! wink wink)

Jimmy V

I saw this journal in a store the other day. I love what Jim Valvano (Coach Jimmy V) had to say. This is a quote from his moving ESPY Awards speech, accepting the Arthur Ashe Award that he received for creating the V Foundation for Cancer Research. The foundation’s motto is “Don’t Give Up . . . Don’t Ever Give Up.”

This famous speech ended with these words from Jim Valvano: “Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever. I thank you and God bless you all.” He received a standing ovation. Jimmy V died about two months after making this speech.

These words, coming from the deepest part of Jimmy’s mind, heart and soul, live on forever, and continue to inspire anyone who comes across them . . . . even on the covers of leather journals found in off-the-beaten path, tiny boutiques.

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Live Love

Today, my great aunt’s body is being put in its resting place. Her beautiful spirit is already free in Heaven with my grandmother, her other siblings and all those people she loved, who have already passed on. My Aunt Mary Lou passed on Christmas day. She fought cancer for 28 years. She held on as long as she could to be with those she treasured most – her beloved husband, children and grandchildren. They knew how much she loved them, because she never held back in that regard.

My Aunt Mary Lou was my grandmother’s youngest sibling and the last of the five of them, to leave Earth, and to go to Heaven. I was the flower girl in her wedding. Unfortunately, as these things happen with extended families, lives get busy, and our relationship dwindled to seeing each other on the occasional wedding or funeral and exchanging Christmas cards. Still, I never doubted her strong love for me and my family, ever. I had heard in early December that hospice had been called. I went to a little chapel where I like to pray, on Hope St. (that’s a real place) There, I lit a candle for her. I texted her some pictures. She texted me back that she loved me and my family so much. I have a lovely little ornament on our Christmas tree from her. She sent it to me when I was pregnant with my first son. It is a wooden heart and on it, she hand wrote (she had lovely, distinctive handwriting), “Baby – we love you already.”

Aunt Mary Lou wasn’t very rich or very famous, or very educated, but she knew what counts. She knew what was really important and she lived it. She lived love. It’s that simple. Rest in peace, dear one. Thank you for touching my life.