November 26, 1937 - April 3, 2001
Today would have been my Mom's 71st Birthday!
It's hard to believe that she left this brief sojourn 7 1/2 years ago.
She would have loved to have been here to see her grand children grow up. I would have loved to have her here for support in rearing them.
I remember her last day like it was yesterday. Her last breath like the one I just took. So frail and ill and so open, organized, and qualified to be released from this mortal coil we call life as we know it. With both sorrow and some sort of contentment, I honour her memory and the day that she was brought into this world on what my Baba says was a crisp, clear and cold Alberta Prairie winter day - high noon November 26th. Just as she took her last breath on a beautiful but completely polar opposite spring day - high noon April 3rd. She entered the world and left it when the sun is highest in the sky.
My Mom still lives under my skin and continues to supply me with the delicious guidance I often yearn for. When she died there was a part of me that was released along with her. Call me deeply responsive to the world around me. I understand better than some that beauty and saddness always go together.
I suppose in order to know happiness one has to be comfortable with the feeling that balances this happiness......saddness. Still, nearly 8 years later I am the water that continues to wear down the pebbles, rocks and boulders put in my way at a slow but consistent rate. I know I may not be "there" yet but I remind myself that I'm closer than I was yesterday. Saddness flies away on the wings of time....each year gets a little more choice or seems as though I have more to choose from.
My Mom was diagnosed 4 days before Christmas with Stage iV colon cancer. She was a physician herself (radiology -breast cancer specialist). But like any great physician, they worry too much about their patients and soon...........they become ill themselves. Christmas time for me is a double edged sword. It's a time of happiness and joy and yet I always feel a sense of melancholy when it rolls around. Christmas has its favorite invitees. FAMILY. And when there are family members missing, it makes for tough times. I try not to concentrate on the woulda, coulda, shoulda's of life but that "Christmas saddness" without my Mom present really does me in............ the saddness turns to melancholy (a saddness that takes on a certain lightness).
Having my own children has taught me in an expeditious way to cherish my health; to look after and into myself. To balance more effectively than she did. If I'm not well, I am no good to anyone else, least of all my beautiful family. They are what I live for now. I would speculate that for my Mom the worst was to have left the world at a time when she would have had the opportunity to see her babies have their babies. I really want to be around for that day in my own life. My one fear is that I will leave the world too soon to witness this.
We want our children come out, live and learn from our shortcomings and live life in a more voluminous way than we. So somewhere along the way we need to learn balance. Next to love, balance is the most important thing. And the key to keeping balance is to know when you've lost it. I know my Mom would be proud of my ability to balance my solitude and dependence. I smile when I think that if she had to die and there was absolutely no other choice, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I became more mindFULL and thus balanced.
For those of you that still have your Momma's alive and well, or maybe alive and not so well, take a moment and give thanks for that gift that you probably all too often (as I did) take for granted and be sure to tell her that you love her many times over!
I continue to "cut, color and paste" the hell out of life. And if you are taking the time to read this right now, so should you!
Life IS short but it has the potential to be so wide if we were to color horizontal just a little more instead of always trying to climb the verticalities of life. I suppose even in this there must be balance.
One of my most cherished pictures with my Mom.
I was probably about 2 or 3 years there.
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. ~G.B. Shaw
Joy and happiness are the indicators of balance in a human machine…An inner joyousness, amounting to ecstasy, is the normal condition of the genius mind. Any lack of that joyousness develops body-destroying toxins. That inner ecstasy of the mind is the secret fountain of perpetual youth and strength in any man. He who finds it finds omnipotence and omniscience. - Walter Russell
Now if this isn't a little Thane monkey?
THANE - 1st bath
When you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and go for a swing! Or let the tree tie it for you!
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