I do have a cropped version of this photograph. I didn't want to use that one, all tidied 'n gussied up. Here is my father, my mother and me. While the edges are rough, my friend Stacey did Photoshop out some crinkles.
Sometimes you can do that.
I thought of my mother Helen in Church this morning, how in the last years of her life I still kept her at arm's length. I was sober but not loving Christ as today. My woundology (to coin a phrase I believe originated with Carolyn Myss) had burrowed deep into my layers. I was more concerned with my armor than with an open heart, even if arrows would come flying at it. Had I more compassion and yes, gentle detachment then, I would have different memories. We might've been able to go out for tea or take a walk together. I'm not prepared to unpack why we could not. Not just now.
I didn't, we didn't. She died three days before Princess Diana was killed in August of 1997. Her ashes are interred in southern California. I wrote about that sometime last year (June). I'll let you find it if it calls to you.
This is the photo I uploaded to Facebook, but closer to the original. Mom was a beauty. She did and didn't realize it.
I'm wondering why Mother's and Father's "Days" are separated.
I think of Jesus' Mother, the Blessed Virgin, whom the Orthodox call The Theotokos. I pray to her sometimes, asking her to intercede on my behalf, but I don't consider her a "mom replacement."
My mother also had a mom, "Babu," a Ukrainian immigrant who had eight children, not all of whom survived childhood. Tillie was her name. My father's mother "Shayna" was killed in the Nazi death camps along with his father, brothers and sisters while he was in New York working for his uncle. There is generational grief in the mothering here.
I don't think Hallmark has a card for this.
While not blotting out the pain, I know exactly Who can soothe me when I feel it.
