Reflections

I was reading Melanie Jacobson's post over at Write Stuff and was really touch by her remarks as she marked the anniversary of her mother's passing. I started to post a comment that I realized was a dang blog post, so I brought it over here.

This is when we were finally able to join my father in Korea

I lost my mom when I was fourteen. It's because of a wish to tell her story that I decided to learn how to write two years ago. See, my children don't know her, don't know the woman that I loved and admired so much.. They hear occasional stories and recognize her in pictures.

It's not the same thing.

There are certain ocassions you go through in life that you expect you mom to be there for. Like graduating from high school and getting married.

But especially when having a baby. I was still active duty in the Army, when I had my first son. We were stationed in Germany, so it was just my husband and me there, trying to figure it all out on our own. I know my mother would have found a way to come to be with me, just as I've been there for the birth of every one of my daughter's four children.

Because Mom never got to experience being a grandmother, I cherish the moments I get to spend with mine. It's common for me to think about how I'm getting to do something she never got to.

In my faith, we believe that we existed before we were born, that we had connections with people, that we experienced love and family there before we experienced it here.

When I was in college, there was a musical that really went home for me. I found the music and the interweaving of stories to be just what I needed for encouragement and inspiration at that time in my life. I didn't realize it would mean so much more to me when I got a little older and began my family.

In the play Saturdays Warrior, one of the oldest siblings dies before the youngest is born. It's easy to think that because my mom died so young that she never got to see my children. But I prefer to imagine my unborn children greeting her when she died and passed through the veil.
 
When I get good enough at the writing thing, my personal history will finally be one of my projects. My hope is that I will be able to bring my mother to life for my children the way I knew her.
 
I hope she'd had been proud of me.