Lifted
Mama
This is my favorite photo of us. I wish I had one that showed your face at this moment but I know that mine was only mirroring yours. You were smiling, full of joy.
This is what it felt like to be yours. Lifted, adored, cherished.
It’s my first Mothers Day with you on the other side of the veil. I can see you though. You are smiling, dressed to the nines with your broad-brimmed hat walking over the bridge to me at church. Somehow you will always be wearing yellow in my mind. So cheerful and alive- that was you.
I talk to you everyday, as if you never left. I don’t know if you hear me, but I know Jesus does. I often ask him to tell you things for me. I know you are so happy in his presence.
Beauty
I know I am who I am because you believed in me. I know I am still coasting on all of your prayers and words of encouragement. They encircle me daily still.
I miss your voice now. I can hear it in my head — the way you said my name like no one else ever did. It was more like a song than a name when you said it– Ma-ry, the first syllable lilting into the next. You said it that way when you called me in for supper, when you were trying to find me in a crowded room, when you walked into my back door last spring. Oh my heart aches for it now.
I know it is one of the first things I will hear when I get to heaven. ” Ma-ry”. You will be there singing my name.
Loved
I laugh when I look at this picture on my wedding day- only because you hated that wallpaper in the background. You remember? You didn’t want it in my wedding photos. You squeezed me tight anyway. And then you let me go, even though I know it broke your heart.
Mom? I feel I am failing at so much. You were the voice that always loved — always believed when I couldn’t believe in myself. Yesterday as I was trying to clean the top of my dresser I broke down because I am such a mess and the only person who loved me unconditionally was you. You didn’t care that I was messy– you actually loved it.
Mama, when you died my world was caving in. I could see it happening but Jesus stood there in the middle and told me some things. He said that all the things I loved about you could still be found in him- your nurturing spirit, your belief, your unconditional love, the way you came in to rescue when I needed things, your comforting love. He said he had all those things for me still and they were in him. He made you and he made you the mother you were to me.
He is still mothering me the way you would have. I have some stories to tell you about that, Mom.
I love you so, Mama. Happy Mothers Day. I know you were will be dressed in your finest and you will be celebrating with your mother and your grandmother. Until I get to join you all there, I will do my best to honor your life with my own.
Love,
Mary