Friday, July 9, 2010

My Mom

Today is the day two years ago that my mother died. Another year. Another 365 days. Time has, as promised, healed some of the pain. I do have days when a fleeting thought or song will remind me of my mom and I will feel the emotion like new. But I can also talk about her and laugh about her without welling up with tears. I've spent time with all three of my brothers over the past year and we've talked about mom. I can let my memories flow and miss her, but I can also embrace those memories and let them remind me of who my mom was.

In the last year my dad has fallen in love and remarried. His wife is a wonderful woman who is sweet and understanding. She shares his love of family and traveling. She teases him and makes him smile. I will admit that seeing my dad remarry was hard for me. It was hard to see him stand with another woman at their wedding surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren and have a picture taken. He looked so odd in that group. But that was hard for me because I was thinking of my mom that day, not because I didn't want him to marry his new wife. I can see how happy he is and know that it was a good thing for him to do. I believe that it is a blessing for my dad to be married and to have someone who is watching out for him and taking care of him. One day, around Christmas, my dad and his wife came to dinner at my house. We were playing games afterward. We were having fun and laughing and laughing. We were laughing so hard, we were crying. It struck me that my dad was laughing so hard he was crying. That sound was like music to me. It made me so happy to see my dad being so happy.

My mom is gone, but not at all forgotten. Her life is honored as a wife by my dad's eagerness to remarry another good woman. Her life as a mother is honored by the lives of her children in the times that we gather and share memories of her. Some of our favorite foods are those that she taught us to love. Her life as a grandmother is honored by the lives of her grandchildren as they remember their "Grammie." We carry her in our hearts everywhere we go.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Life

I've heard it said that people can't hurt you without your permission. I do agree with that to a certain extent. People who cut in front of you at the grocery store or are rude on the phone should not be given permission to hurt you. You need to let that sort of thing roll off your back. Even a co-worker who is in a bad mood and snaps at you should be ignored as best you can.
But there are some people who will hurt you and there is nothing you can do about it, by virtue of the fact that you are close to them, love them and are in the kind of relationship that warrants hurt feelings when they do certain things. If a husband falls out of love with a wife, that hurts. If a daughter has no time for her parents, that hurts. If a dear, dear friend walks away, that hurts. And why do those things hurt? They hurt because when we enter into a close, loving relationship with someone, we allow people to hurt us. That is not a bad thing. We want close, loving relationships. We want dear, dear friends. If we didn't allow ourselves to be hurt by other people, then we would know that we were keeping people at arm's length. We would know that we weren't really close to people and that we didn't allow people to get close to us. When someone says that you should not give others permission to hurt you, what they're really saying is that they don't want to be close to others. They have chosen to keep others on a superficial level, never really letting anyone get too close because they don't want any pain.
God promises to wipe every tear, but He wipes them as they fall. He wipes them as we cry in pain. He intended that we would be relational. He wants us to be close to others, while knowing that sometimes relationships will make us cry.