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Remembering Mom
It was a tough day today. Mom was on my mind a lot and I'm not sure why. She usually creeps up on me at odd and random times, like when I try to call someone and automatically begin to dial her number, a number that hasn't reached her in just over two years now; or I think of something that I know she'd have appreciated and then realize she's no longer there to tell anymore. Today it began while I was running errands and realized the stores had all the Christmas decorations and diplays up already. I'm just not prepared to see that two weeks before Hallowe'en!! I usually have the couple of weeks before Thanksgiving to prepare myself; steel myself. Christmas was Mom's favorite holiday. She had so many decorations that she could have opened up a well-stock store. As the years went by, especially after we lost Daddy, the decorations got put out in smaller numbers, but there was never any question, when you walked in her house, that she was a lover of all things Christmas. She was the BEST gift wrapper (having done it in a higher class department store before I came along, back when things were wrapped by the store - no charge!) So we were always almost as eager to see our gifts finery as we were what was inside the perfectly wrapped box. And her cookies. My God, I miss her cookies! Spritz (a kind of buttery dough spit out of a tube with a decoration plate on the end, so you'd have stars, Christmas trees, candy canes, Scottie dogs, flowers that melted on your tongue; there were the filled ones - always nuts in one and lekvar in the other. (I fell in love with the lekvar ones long before I found out what lekvar is.) When I was small, Mom started doing the Christmas dinner so I was surrounded by aunts, uncles, grandparents - all people who doted on me and spoiled me in the fashion of the season! I can still imagine the way Aunt NeeNee's ambrosia tasted (I need to get adventurous and try to replicate it some year - if there was ever a recipe, it's long gone) and Mom's stuffing (which I'm SO glad to say my husband has been able to replicate to a T!! Anyway, I apologize for going off on a tangent, but it felt right to sit down and remember her a little, this day that she's felt thisclose. Today I wore the scarf she'd made for herself (we all have our own, but I called dibs on hers after she passed) and it helped a little. It was almost like knowing she was giving me a hug from Heaven; almost but not quite... <3
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Comment by Sheree on February 7, 2011 at 6:04pm
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This is my favorite photo of you girls and that boy!! I miss her. I miss how she sent thank-you cards HANDWRITTEN like they're supposed to be. I still wear my scarf in cold weather and think of her kindness in making it for me. She was a jewel, Elle. A truly beautiful soul.
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Comment by Jodie Ann Christiansen on March 9, 2010 at 10:21pm
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Elle, I am getting "feelings" coming on strong of late.....I believe it is because my mom's first anniv. of her death this March 19th......I failed my mom's expectations on a few occasions;however, she unconditionally loved me and wish she and I had said that much to each other more......she kept the family together and toiled endlessly for us all, yet hardly recognized/appreciated except in my memories ! she was 82 yo when she died, me sleeping beside her at the nursing home, and she nonverbally told me that she wanted /was ready to die yrs before she actually died.. I finally allowed her "to go" ,in that I did not demand the doctors to order a bag of IV fluids if I saw signs of dehydration.....or if she would lose weight and would not sufficiently eat, I demanded docs to order tube feedings......or whatever I could do to prolong her life, I commanded the staff/doctors UNTIL last March 19th, 2009, she died.....I still vascillate as to why I allowed her to die.....she stopped eating/drinking by mouth.....A liter of fluids and nutritional formula would have revived her ,like so many times before....she had no cancer (diagnosed)....she was in relatively decent condition except the series of strokes took more and more of her abilities and cognition.....she knew me and half-way smiled every days I visited her.....oh dear, Elle, I am rambling....forgive me. why oh why does it still hurt? why oh why did I not show love more!!??? lesson hard- learned ,but, well- learned and her death changed me in that way.
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Comment by Elle MacNeil on October 19, 2009 at 11:07pm
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Hi, Susie! It's amazing how mom's stay with us. I only hope I'll have that "staying power" with my own daughter. Thanks for your kind words.
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Comment by wiffledust on October 19, 2009 at 10:50am
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oh there's so much i can't watch. we just do the best we can. but the good thing is that the important "videos" are in our mind! as for grammatical errors, i could care less. have you noticed i don't even bother to capitalize anymore! hahh HUGS!
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: ) Thanks, Lisa! And sorry for all the grammatical errors (they're usually like fingernails on a chalkboard to me!), but it was late and I'd had a glass of wine.
I video taped my mom making her filled cookies the year before she passed. I'm so glad I did. Now, if I could just get up the courage to watch it!!
Hugs back!
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oh elle. this was so lovely. i bet your mom is reading this with a big smile on her face. it's so weird that you wrote this, because just this week i was missing my mom's cooking so very much. she filled the house with the most wonderful gourmet dishes almost every day of the week. it was her way of expressing her creativity when she felt thwarted in other areas. and i think it was one of the ways she showed my dad she loved him. but the meals were out of this world. and i wish so much that she had taught me everything before she left this world. i was just saying how at least she taught me how things should taste. in any case. i think i miss the smells of her cooking, because they meant she was at the stove and all was right with the world.gee, that sounded sexist, didn't it ? how anti feminist. yet so much love came from that stove. .....anyway i understand how you feel, because i feel it too. and someones it's that one piece of clothing that helps you get through the moment. they're just too special to disappear , aren't they? there must me more than this! a hug for you, elle. and thanks so much for posting this!!!
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