Mother’s Day Without Mom

This marks the fifteenth Mother’s Day since my Mom passed away and in many ways it feels like it happened yesterday and in another, it seems like forever.

The first Mother’s Day was in 1994 and Joe Dirck, Cleveland Plain Dealer, wrote an editorial entitled, “Mother’s Day without Mom” and it hit home, then and now.

In his editorial he went on with all his memories and ended it with a quote that is so true for me,

They say that time heals all wounds, but I don’t know. The sharp, immediate pain that I felt when she died is gone, but the deeper ache, the sense of irrevocable loss, is still there. Always will be, I suppose.

My own Mother said that I “would always be her little boy” and I’m proud to say I was and still am her “little boy.”

I’ve been told that when a boy’s Father dies, the boy loses the connection to his past but when his Mother dies he loses the “safety” net to his life.

My Mother instilled in me a love of books, reading and respect for great literature.

She gave me a passion for the sound of words, of music and made sure that my inquisitive mind had a desire to explore nature by always “looking up and around” to see the world.

I’m thankful that “memory is a gift from God that death can not destroy.”

It is lonely without her.

I miss the eloquent English accent, the grace she exuded upon entry to a room and I even miss her constant “give us a hug lad.”

Yes, “…the sense of irrevocable loss, is still there.”

Happy Mother’s Day to You and Yours.