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| Me and my mom, I was just a few weeks old. |
This week is Thanksgiving and while it is a festive time of the year, it is also a bit sad for me. A year ago, my Mom passed away. She fought the fight for a very long time and did a very good job but in the end the Carcinosarcoma won. While I was sad she was gone, I was also at peace with her passing, because I knew she was ready. She never did anything that she didn't want to and she lived life on her own terms so I knew when she passed away, it was on her terms as well. Thanksgiving was at her house last year and ALL of us were there, for the first time in many, many years all of her children and grandchildren were in one room for a holiday and I think she was happy with that. The next week, she passed away quietly in her bed, in her house where she wanted to be.
I am thankful for the time I had with both of my parents, they helped shape me into who I am today. I am, who I am in part because of both of them. The relationship we had was just that, our relationship, it was unique to both of us and different from anyone else's. Good, bad or indifferent, it was ours.
I think I got several things from my mom, she was an avid gardener, she liked flowers much more than people I think, you could often find her in her garden, dirt all over her, with a coffee cup in her hand (it didn't matter if it was 25 or 100 degrees, she drank coffee!). I am also an avid gardener, can often be found in my yard with dirt all over me, though no coffee, I only drink that in the morning. I also think she passed on a love of photography to me as well, she took tons of pictures, my whole life. We each have tons of photos she took of us as kids and adults. She bought me my first camera in fact, when I was 11, and I took bunches of photos. That was in the day when you sent your film off to be developed and had to wait for it to come back, I remember how excited I was when they came in the mail! I even have those photos, they are in a album in my attic. She worked as a printer for years so she was very good at color selection, placement, lighting and composition of subjects. It amazed me she could look at a color and tell you what different color combination made that particular color. She learned in the day before computers, she did it all by hand and by sight and that to me is amazing.
Both of my parents passing made me realize how important it is to take a breath and take the time to preserve the memories in some way or another, because that is all I have left of them, is pictures and memories. In my life, my camera and/or phone sits on the counter, ready to capture the funny face or special moment that makes me get a lump in my throat. Like Jordan, being a doctor at the "hobstable" (hospital) when his Daddy has a cold, taking his temperature, and listening to his heart beat and helping him feel all better. This is also why I make my family do a formal family portrait every year. My biggest regret is not having one last photo of my siblings and I, our spouses, our children and our mother together. So every year in the fall, I make my family take one, because Jordan will only be this age once. Whenever my siblings and I are all together, I make them take one as well, because it is rare when we are all in the same place at once so I torture them too! It's important to me and even though they grumble, I think one day they will be happy we did it, if not, our kids will at least get a good laugh out of it.
So while this time of the year is happy, it is also bittersweet, but again I am thankful for the time I had with her and I know she is at peace. I am also thankful for the things she taught me, and for how she helped shape me into to who I am.
Happy Thanksgiving Mom, I miss you!
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| Mom at Christmas, saying "Cheese" |
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| My mother's family. They have very few photos of all of them together, so this is very special to all of them. |
