One Year Ago

Around this time last year my next door neighbor, Maureen, said, “Here Mary. This rose bush is for you. When it blooms, you’ll always remember your Mom.”

Today is the one year anniversary of my Mom’s passing and I find it so fitting that the first rose of the season has bloomed on this bush and also that it’s a pink rose – one of my Mom’s favorite flowers.

During her long, difficult stay in the hospital before her death, I told her some very important and meaningful things. Now there are other things I wish I had remembered to say to her.

Being the middle child of five, she always felt inadequate and often lonely. A few weeks before she died, she even commented to me and my brother that she wished she was a “better Mother”. Well, we took care of that comment quickly and brought it to her attention that she raised some pretty great kids that grew into wonderful adults. Always analytical, stubborn, philosophical, spiritual, and competitive, she was quick to prove others wrong, but this time, she raised one eyebrow very high and said, “Well, I can’t say you are wrong this time!”

I wish I had told her I regret rolling my eyes and being impatient with her endless stories of being raised on a farm in Finksburg, Maryland. Her parents were tenant farmers and struggled to feed their family. Now I appreciate the stories of her thirty-six cats, chickens, snakes, and the horse who nearly ate himself to death. Now I can laugh about her handling a shotgun so well! And the fact that her Mother made clothing for the children using potato sacks breaks my heart. Other than time spent in school, she worked the farm from sunrise to sunset and a hot bath was a luxury. I don’t think she tasted ice cream until she was ten years old. The conditions she lived in gave her a perspective on life that many people will never understand. Yes, we rolled our eyes and laughed many times. Perhaps because my brother and I were city dwellers as children, her stories seemed unreal and impossible for us to comprehend.

She encouraged me to be independent. She encouraged my brother to be spiritual. Although she and I weren’t close to each other on a daily basis and I saw her infrequently during the past twenty or so years, she knew me better than I know myself. I miss her voice. Mom loved her family intensely and I feel certain that she knows we are just fine. She was an avid reader and writer and told me to never ignore my artistic talent. Part of me thinks she might be enjoying my blog every day? She would have loved it.

"I needed the quiet so He drew me aside, into the shadows where we could confide.

Away from the bustle where all day long, I hurried and worried when active and strong. I needed the quiet, though at first I rebelled, but ever so gently, my cross He upheld and whispered so sweetly of spiritual things.

Weakened in body, my spirit took wings to heights never dreamed of when active and gay. He loved me so gently, He drew me away, I needed the quiet.

No prison my bed, but a beautiful valley of blessings instead. A place to grow richer in Jesus to hide. I needed the quiet, so He drew me aside."

Anon