Nine Mother's Days have come and gone now since my mom was last with us. I can't really recollect how I spent my last one with her back in May of 2007, but I can only imagine it involved a hamburger, a small can of diet Coke, and a plain sundae. More than likely I picked up her favorite lunch in the drive-thru of the 30th Street McDonald's back in Hutch and delivered it to her at the long-term care facility where she lived her final 4 years of life. She loved for us kids to pick up that simple kind of fare for her from time to time. Mom could only take having to eat so many meals served from a nursing home kitchen before she would call one of us kids and ask the simple question.
"Can you please go to McDonald's and bring me a hamburger for my supper?"
We always did.
So much has happened in my life since my mom passed away that late September day in 2007. I retired from teaching, went back to teaching, got married, moved to Colorado, became a mother-in-law twice, became a grandmother for the first time, and last year moved to Texas where I am now finishing up my 38th year as an educator. Even though a person doesn't think it can, life did go on and I tried to live mine as she would have wished for me to. I hope she would be proud of me.
I miss my mom, some days more than others. Every once in a while, I still think of the many stories that she shared with me about life. I wish I would have paid a little more attention to what she told me and sadly I admit that I have forgotten some of them. I have her diaries and journals that she faithfully kept for nearly 5 years and from time to time, I go back to them and read what she wrote. Her thoughts and words were simple and true as they explained the kind of times she was going through. I'm so happy that she wrote and kept track of what life was like. Perhaps it is because of her that I blog in the way that I do. My desire is for my own 3 children to remember a few things in the years to come about their own mom and how much I really did love my life and them too!
When I lived back home in Kansas, I'd always make it a point to go to the cemetery just outside of the little town of Halstead where all my family members are laid to rest. I would always go twice in May with the first time being Mother's Day weekend and the other Memorial Day. I promised her that I would take care of the graves of all the Brown and Scott family members and for many years I was able to do just that. The last 3 years have been a little more difficult, simply because we lived so very far away in Colorado. Now that we are in Texas and only a 5 hour drive away, I will be able to go more often and I think she would be quite pleased with that. As kids we were taught to honor both the living and the dead, something that I have passed on to my own children. I believe that mom would be happy about that as well.
My mom wasn't perfect but who is anyways? She loved us and cared about what happened to us. Without a doubt, she sacrificed much more than we would ever know. I still remember her voice and I will always remember the very last gift she gave to me as we waited by her bedside in the early morning hours of September 25, 2007. With one last gaze into my eyes, she looked at me and told me something that I will never forget.
"You are a good girl, Peggy Ann."
I never saw her eyes open again and it was the last time that she spoke to me before she passed on.
My mom didn't realize just how much I needed to hear her say that. She never knew what a precious gift she was bestowing to me in just 7 little words. Even though I am now only 27 years younger than she was when she died, I still know one thing.
Forever I will be her little girl.
Happy Mother's Day in Heaven Mom~where the banquet table is set with food far greater than even the best McDonald's in town.
Not sure how the time flew by so quickly, yet it did.
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