Tomorrow is my mother's birthday. She would have been 67. It is hard for me to believe that she has been gone 7 years.
Sometimes I still forget that she is gone. I'll pick up the phone to call her on my way home from work and then I remember. It is strange how old behaviors come back and for a moment we've forgotten how life has changed.
Not long ago I saw a little woman sitting on the edge of her seat, clenching the steering wheel of the large blue boat of a car she was driving - it reminded me of Mom.
My Mom loved flowers. Her garden became her sanctuary. And in her last days, she would spend many hours by the window watching the birds and looking at her garden.
A couple of weeks ago, I thought I had seen the last of the gardenias blooming. The bush was back to the normal green, not a bloom to be seen. But this week, the blossoms came back and there are four. Mom had four children so that seems to be the perfect number.
For birthdays, Mom would always hang the birthday banner. She would bake a cake and sometimes she would try to decorate it like a bakery would. Those cakes were extremely pitiful looking, but there was so much love in the process.
Today I will buy some flowers, hopefully with a sunflower or a stargazer lily (Mom's favorites), but instead of taking them to the cemetery, I will take them home where I will place them in a vase by her picture. And I will let the memories come and enjoy the moment.
When you first lose someone, all you feel is the loss, but as time passes, you learn to honor and cherish their memory.
Happy Birthday Mom!
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