Passion Power

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 be...

It’s a great way to control what they say about you.  While you decide for yourself whether it’s an outlandish, morbid or self absorbed idea, here's mine.  Mom’s going to miss rainstorms and the smell of warm scented wax.  She’ll miss fighting with my dad whether to open the windows or turn on the air conditioner. One day she drove us to school and realized we weren’t in the car.   Mom loved herself and never apologized for it.  She had so many passions and interests it was hard for her to pick so she didn’t.  She just did them all.  When driving us around she would point at trees, flowering bushes or a beautiful orange sky and would practically run us off the road. We use to yell at her. I kind of regret that little now. When we were 2 and 3 years old she took us to McDonalds.  Amy got stuck in the tube slide at the very top the same time Kay bolted across the busy restaurant in her red rain boots heading for the toilet and disappe...