A motherless child

It’s been one week since my mother passed away leaving me feeling like a motherless child.

Today my two daughters and I are going to go through photos and mementos to pull together the content for a slide show on my mum’s life  that we will share at our family memorial on March 22 and at the public service in Smith’s Falls on April 9.  I expect we’ll laugh and cry as we take a stroll down memory lane, through the images contained in her photo albums and mine.

Still together in spirit

Caring for my mother over the past 7 plus months was hard. Harder than I thought it would be. And losing her has been hard. Harder than I thought it would be.

In the last months I recall getting so tired that at times I wished I could be a “stay at home daughter” instead of having to go to work each day. I  used up all my available vacation time caring for her – with the exception of our week in Mexico just before she died. I  juggled priorities trying to keep everything up in the air.

If I sound like I’m complaining – I’m not. I don’t regret a minute. I’m so glad we had the time together and that I was able to provide her with an alternative at the end of her life. As I said to many people, this is the woman who cared for me for the first years of my life. The least I could do is care for her at the end of hers.

Mum  always said that when her time came, she wanted to go to bed one night and not wake up in the morning. That’s essentially what she did – in the cozy comfort of her own room here at my home.  How sweet is that.

My mother lived with heart disease for over 40 years. She never expected to live to 86.  With the help of modern medicine and a tenacious will, she was able to lead an active life until the last year or so. Even her own doctor didn’t expect her to make it to the millenium. Boy did she show him – she lasted almost a decade longer.