I Miss My Mom

 

I miss you, Mom.  I miss hearing you shuffle to the kitchen early in the morning to pour your cup of coffee before settling in to read your devotions.  I miss seeing your forehead creased as you think about the solution to a crossword puzzle.  I miss your authoritative spirit that could handle any given situation.  I miss the smell of Merle Norman makeup on your face.  I miss pinching the skin on the back of your hand and watching it stay in place.  I miss you reaching over to hold my hand, just for the feeling of connection it gave us in those final days.  I miss watching you rise to the occasion when your friends showed up and you didn’t really feel like visiting, but you felt you couldn’t turn them away either.  I miss knowing that you’re taking care of dad…feeding him nutritious meals to help with his health problems.  I miss hearing you complain about things that you had to pretend to be nice about.  I miss you nagging me while I drove you in the car.  I miss looking across the room and watching you hold your coffee cup in both hands, cradling it close to your chest as you stared out the window lost in your own thoughts.  Most of all I miss being able to pick up the phone to call you…or when the phone rings and I can’t hope any more that it’s you calling to check in.  I miss hearing you say, “Hi, Tiger” and wondering why you were calling me Tiger…that’s what you always called the boys.  I miss listening to you rattle off ALL the questions to the Jeopardy answers.  I miss playing Scrabble with you.  I miss watching Wheel of Fortune with you.  I miss watching you turn off the TV if you didn’t like the story that was being reported on the news.  I miss your wonderful church friends that were more family than friend…and how they showed so much love to all of us in your final days. 

There are some things I do not miss though, Mom.  I don’t miss feeling like I never quite measured up to what you hoped your daughter could or would be.  I don’t miss how you would discourage my dreams and plans if they weren’t what you wanted for me.  I don’t miss feeling judged lacking by you when failure came my way.  I don’t miss wishing my children could have pleased you and Dad.  I know you loved them all…but I also know you took their disappointments and failures personally…which meant blaming me for not raising them the way you would have raised them.  I don’t miss that you treated me differently than you treated David…always enjoying him.  But I sort of understand that better now that I have grown children of my own.  The third one is just easier.  You’ve made your mistakes on the first one…fine-tuned and honed everything with the second one…so the third one just gets to be enjoyed.  I hurt because David will never know the truth of how different our relationships were with you.  I’m grateful he was blessed to be the “good” child…and he lives accordingly.  I look at him and see every good thing in you and Dad all poured into him…and I’m blessed to have him for a little brother.  Thank you for that gift.

I wish I could have lived life backwards.  I wish I could have known from the beginning how much I’d miss you when you were gone.  I wish I could have known how important it would have been to build good memories with you.  I wish I could have known how my failures would hurt you and I could have avoided those failures…although, truth be known, I sort of like who I am now and I wouldn’t be me without all those flaws and mistakes and brokenness.  I wish I could have loved you in the middle and beginning like I loved you in the end.  I wish we could have been friends more than mother and daughter…we didn’t do justice to mother and daughter and we never crossed the line into friendship.  I know I’m not the type of person you would have chosen for a friend.  You chose your friends sparingly… but you chose really good friends.

So right now I miss you.  Every day I’ve missed you since you left.  You never got to meet all the wonderful great-grandchildren…you would have loved being loved by them and loving them.  You never got to see me succeed…but I will succeed because I come from good stock.  You never knew the personal pain and embarrassment I carried because I protected you from the worst of it…and God’s been helping to heal it. 

I love you and pray that you and Dad are enjoying your reward for lives lived that honored God.

Rest in peace, Mom.