Mother

  My first Mother's day without Mom. Well, without Mom being on this earth anyway. No phone calls to heaven. There were many years when I wasn't with her in person, life has a way of interrupting things like that, but I always sent a card and tried to make a phone call. It's like an old habit, something you want to do. In this case it wasn't a bad habit just habitual. Now I feel denied and wanting. 

 It's strange how our thoughts change after someone is gone. At least my thoughts change somewhat. Now when I think of my mother, I think of what was. That is what is different. No more real time communication. It's the past. Now I see her as a complete individual, not just as Mom. It seems as though death gives us that ability. We see the whole picture and speculate. Everything wasn't the way we saw it, it was the way we lived it. Now, that life is over. I can talk about her uninhibited by the present time. A life reviewed. 

 Many years after my grandmother had passed away I wrote a sort of synopsis of what I thought her life had been. My mother read that and became very upset with me. Her view was so much different than mine. I was told I had no right to say such things about her mother. That she was my grandmother didn't matter a wit, my mother was incensed. Time passed and that wasn't mentioned again. I still do not understand what the problem was as I feel like I had written the truth. Perhaps it was just my mother's way of holding onto to her mom. I'll never know that answer. 

 Now, just ten days shy of her being gone for a year, I'm thinking about writing a synopsis of her life as well. Only one of her children survive beside myself. I'm not concerned with what his thoughts might be should I do so. The hardest part for me would be her grandchildren and great children. She was never close to any of them. Whatever I write may someday be read by them and it's a responsibility. Being a biographer carries that weight. When the biographer is the son bias will enter the narrative. Can it be otherwise? 

 She lived for ninety one years and a lot happened over that time. I did witness the last sixty seven years of that life. I knew her in the first person. Of her past, her youth, I know very little beyond what I was told. She was twenty four years old when I was born. She had three children prior to me, the first in 1947. Can I really speak to her mind? I think perhaps that is what bothered her when I wrote about my grandmother, I did speculate on how she must have felt about things she never talked about. There are many things I never talked about with my mother. The reason is a simple one, she didn't want to talk about any of that. I get it, we all have things we just don't want to talk about.

 Still, she deserves to be remembered. If I don't write anything down how will anyone in the future know? All that will be remembered is rumor and innuendo. I should tell her story. The responsibility of that is something I am aware of. Perhaps that is a bit pretentious of me, that I should feel that way. My opinions and observations are no more valid or binding than anyone else's. Well, whatever the case may be, whatever I decide to do, I will always love her for being my mom. That will never change. If I had to sun up my mother with a single word I'm thinking it would be restless. I believe she had a restless spirit. Today all I wish for her is rest. May she rest in peace, knowing that she was loved.