Thursday, March 26, 2015

Ninety One

Today would have been my mother's ninety first birthday. Damn, I just wish she had made it to 90.

I don't know where I was last year on this date, or what I was doing or thinking but for some reason the day came and the day passed but not before I placed a bouquet or flowers at the Blessed Mother shrine at the church where my parents worshiped for many years. We did not have nearly as much snow last year so placing a glass vase filled with flowers was not as out of the question as it seemed this year.  I have a different plan for honoring her with her birthday so close to Easter.  I'm sure she would approve and forgive me for not venturing out in the cold rain today.

I could write volumes, in fact, I'm sure that if I scrolled down over the hundreds of posts that I have completed here over the past years, I would find that I have already done that.  I've never been at a loss for what to write about my mom.  She really was an amazing woman and you would only have known that after meeting her had you not been an old friend or family member.  We always knew it.  She never, ever gave herself the credit that she deserved nor did she ever boast about her accomplishments.  My mother was one very beautiful woman and I know that she must have been told so many times over but she redirected the spotlight and was quick to point out the beauty of someone else. She'd stop strangers on the street to pay them a compliment, knowing that her words would carry weight in one's self-esteem department.  She never missed an opportunity to do that.  A compliment, coming from her, would have brightened the dullest of days, that's how pretty she was.  My father knew it.  She was a mere sixteen years old when he first laid his eyes on her and from that very moment, he knew he had found the love of his life.  The made a handsome young couple and as the years went on, they became role models for anyone who would ever fall in love again.  We thought my father would die within months of her death. We really did.

Alas, this is not a the proper forum for eulogizing Mom.  Her memory resides deep within my heart and always will be alive therein.  I'll never hold a candle to her but will always be grateful for any similarity.

I'm saddened but also incredibly disappointed that she did not make it too far beyond her eighty ninth birthday.  I'm also very proud that she made it that far.  Her final years were spent in pain and the knowledge that she would be leaving us at any time.  She had not one, but multiple cancers, all of which she faced with courage and dignity, oh my God, such dignity.  She taught us all a lesson in how to conduct yourself in the face of adversity and how to accept whatever God planned, with grace and faith.  I just wish she could have made it into her nineties because she so richly deserved to have made it after coming so far so well.

Happy Birthday Angelina Ballerina!


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