The Empty Chair

It is the little thing that I will miss the most about my Mother.  The Matriarch, the Grandmother, Mom. Thinking that I haven't even thought of yet.  How do you say goodbye to the woman who gave you your life?  I look at the empty chair across from me in the food court. Tears flow, sadness and memories of joy set in.  Mom was there from day one and became my friend without me even realizing it.  

She poured her love onto others and was always a soft place to land if you were having a rough day.  Mom fed everyone including the birds.  Even at 87 years old we still ate at her table on a very regular basis.

She had more energy than all of us put together.  She raised four of us and if that wasn’t enough, she had her cub pack, choir practice and church. She looked after our grandparents and had part time jobs and a vegetable garden and played euchre with her friends every two weeks for decades. She taught through her example to make the best of it and that it wasn’t all about us.  Her book of life had zillion things in it that I can’t even begin to wrap my head around. She loved the fair and she loved baking and canning and swimming.  She loved ball games, card games, garage sales, bake sales, picnics, and parades. She loved the theatre, Christmas, movies, concerts, the mall, and swimming.  Mom was up for anything. 

It’s a blessing to recognize what a great mother we had. She was fun and she was feisty.  She always had her priorities straight. Mother never gave up on people. If there were people in need there was work to be done. She lived a full and wonderful life she built with my father, and I’ll always be grateful to both for keeping our nuclear family together. 

What I have learned is that grief is just grief, and you can’t turn it into anything but grief. I’m grateful for all the years we had her, and it wasn’t long enough.  Mom lived well and she used everything she had until the very end which is a good legacy in my view.  Mom, if death is a graduation, you’re on the honour roll.