Today marks nine years…NINE YEARS (yes, I’m screaming and maybe even stomping my feet a little) since my mom died.
I know, I know. Here I go again. But it still doesn’t seem possible. It doesn’t seem possible that she’s gone and it certainly doesn’t seem possible that it’s been as long as it has.
But then I look at all I have done in that time, at who I’ve become, at how I’ve changed, and then it does maybe seem real (I say this as if I have a choice in the matter).
My mom liked to write down inspirational or just quality quotes. Here’s one that was on her bulletin board on the day she died:
“Being happy is largely a matter of deciding to stop being unhappy.”
I’ve scoured the Internet and quote books looking for the source, but have yet to find it. I imagine she heard it on the radio, perhaps an author was interviewed and mom furiously copied it on the scrap of paper (I come by my love of NPR honestly, throughout my childhood it was the constant “hum” in our house). But the quote: I love its simplicity, its no nonsense matter-of-factness. I recently rediscovered it shoved in a box labeled “Mom stuff” and tacked it on my bulletin board at work as a friendly little reminder-I find comfort in the message as well as the familiar loopy scrawl of my mother’s writing.
My mom and I have a lot in common and moods are one of them. She might not have liked me saying this, but she could be difficult-dissatisfied for no apparent reason, snappy and yes, moody. And if she was mad at you, well you definitely knew it. There was a restlessness about her (that I share). She took a lot of walks. She sighed. She cleaned a lot. She seemed to always be in motion. It was as though she was searching for something. She wasn’t always happy (to be fair, who is?) but there was an underlying melancholy about her sometimes, as if there was some disappointment she couldn’t quite put her finger on. I guess I’ll never know what this was about. Maybe it was just a part of who she was.
But I think this restlessness, this searching, was also what caused her to always be looking to improve herself. She read voraciously (she once told me how she was punished as a child for getting so engrossed reading the cereal box at the breakfast table that she didn’t answer her mother). She began studying French in her forties. She was always taking some kind of class and was proficient in cooking something from nearly every country (she would get on “kicks:” Malaysia one year, Thailand the next). I won't go into the number of attempts that were made at the perfect daal or chapati bread.
On the flip side of the restlessness, she also
really knew how to enjoy life. She adored traveling with her beloved husband (my stepfather), and would start planning their next trip the day she returned from their last. She could make a feast out of leftovers (
“Oh this? I just used what we had!”) but look out if you let her loose in her favorite market, where she’d return home with treats for everyone: fresh mozzarella, five kinds of olives, fresh pasta, warm baguette and of course, something from the bakery in a pink box tied with a crisp white string.
When she was happy, she was
happy and everyone knew it. And if she loved you, she could make you feel like the most important person in the world. She showered her loved ones with gifts, and with what sometimes seemed like almost eerie psychic powers, often got people exactly what they wanted, without having to tell her in advance. For her, giving was receiving, in the extreme.
I’ve written here before about how she once complimented me on my "joie de vivre" (French for “enjoyment of life). Mom, I came by it honestly. She was a great teacher.
Like any mother, my mom worried about me (her only child). I know she wasn’t happy with all of the choices I made in my life. She tried to support me as best she could and in the end, for the most part, embraced my decisions. But I’m pretty sure that one of my mother’s greatest fears for me was that I wouldn’t have children and that by extension, she wouldn’t get to be a grandmother.
I think she’d be pleased to know that her fears went seriously unfounded.
And I think I can say, unequivocally, her grandchildren would have made her happy.
