Gone, but forever with me

I believe the people who we lose in death are never really gone from us. Since my Dad passed back in 2000 I feel him around me all the time. My siblings report similar experiences - dreams, "coincidences", and sneezing fits which we know in our bones mean that Dad is making himself known. My Mom on the other hand, well, she died when I was just 6 and a half. I have felt the hole left in my life by her passing as a giant gaping crater for as long as my memory stretches. While I have always felt a love, I haven't really felt a strong physical presence from her. I know she's here, I just think she takes kind of a subtle approach because anything more would just be way too emotional for me to handle on a daily basis (and also, that may just be more her personality). I totally accept that.

My Mom's death was tragic. She was so young, only 49. She had so much life still ahead of her. She left behind 5 children, including a 16 year old and a 6 year old. My father was devastated - and although he went on to marry again, he never got past the loss of his true love. Our family is strong, bonded together forever in part because we share this terrible loss, but we're quiet about it. We can laugh and joke and use really inappropriate "death" humor and talk about my Dad, and a half dozen other dead relatives, but when it comes to Mommy - well, sometimes we choke even on the name. It just...hurts so much. I worry sometimes that because we don't talk much about her she is being forgotten. My children are so close with their Dad's Mom..."Grandma", I wonder how the occasional mention of their "Grandma in Heaven" can hold any place in their hearts.

My daughter Curly is named for two special people. Her first name is the same as that of my Aunt, my mother's sister, and her middle name is Patricia - which yes, is my name, but is also my mother's name. I have a beautiful old black & white photograph hanging in a frame in Curly's room. It is a picture taken on a rooftop in Brooklyn of the two sisters, newly arrived in America. They are wearing new clothes and smiling widely. The picture was taken and sent home to Ireland as proof that the hardships endured by my grandfather in sending two of his daughters off to a better life, were indeed paying off. I especially like the picture in Curly's room because my Aunt is on the left and my mother on the right - so the picture is of "Finola and Patsy" - literally Finola and Patricia - my daughter's namesakes.

Tonight I was laying in bed with my sweet girl - a luxury as usually her bratty little brothers take up so much of my time at bedtime that she is already in dreamland by the time I come to "tuck her in". As we laid together I was looking up at the picture hanging near her bed, and I asked her if she ever looked at that picture. She told me she does, that she likes to look at it. I asked her what she thinks about it and she told me that she likes to think about her "other Grandma". I got all choked up, but tried to hide it. She went on to tell me that she always pictures her in her mind, young with short brown hair, then turned to me with tears on her cheeks...at that point I couldn't hide mine anymore. My sweet little seven year old reached out her hand to wipe my tears and said "I know...it hurts that she's not here" REALLY? Where did you come from you Angel of Heaven! You beautiful thing. My love. She asked me if she was young, and demanded to know why she had died. I explained as best I could about growing up poor in the 1930's and 40's in Ireland and that she had contracted Rheumatic Fever as a child - that she was very sick when she was a little girl - and that it had made her heart weak. That her heart got better for a while, but then one day it just wouldn't work anymore. My Curly girl wept openly for the grandma she has never known but for the picture on her wall. Then she announced, "well, one good thing...I am glad she got better when she was little, or else we wouldn't be here now." I told my Curly girl that her Grandma in heaven is with us all the time, that the love she taught her children is the same love she gets from her Mom and her Aunts and Uncles and is the same love that she shares with her brothers and someday with her own children.

All my life I have wanted to be a Mom. Maybe because I had some unfinished business in the Mommy department, but always this life of mine, these kids, they have been my vocation, my calling. Before I had children I thought that I would feel the absence of my Mom even more strongly when I became a mother. In the beginning after Firstson was born I thought a lot about her- the fact that she had gone through many of the same things I was now experiencing- rocking my baby to sleep after a feeding in the wee small hours, staring at him as he slept just to watch him breathe... The effect was quite the opposite of what I expected, as I grew into my own role as Mommy - that is, the more I defined myself as "mother" - the less I defined myself as "motherless". The job came so naturally to me, and I was, am, good at it. I am blessed. And maybe the reason that I don't feel that huge hole as much anymore is because my Mother is close beside me now, guiding me through everyday. (Wow...seriously THAT idea just came to me as I typed , excuse me while I wipe the snot and tears off my face and keyboard....)

Just a minute ago my Curly girl, who is supposed to be long asleep by now, crept into my room to make sure my tears were dry ....yes, I do think there's a reason, a very good reason that my Mother feels so close to me tonight...