 Anniversary of a Loss
It was three years ago today that I lost my Mom to lung cancer. She was young and the cancer took her quick. It was the beginning of December when she first started feeling poorly, and not until February that she was diagnosed with the cancer. I went and saw her in February and again in April. When I visited her in April, we went to the nursery together to pick out her flowers and then I planted her garden for her. She seemed to be getting better and feeling strong. We even went out dancing together on that trip! She was taking Carolina Shag lessons and wanted me to meet her dancing friends. Then in late May she called to say that the chemo wasn't working, she was just feeling worse from it. She was going into Hospice and wanted all us kids to come together and see her. We got the call on Thursday and all met at the airport Friday afternoon. She had arranged to have us meet with her Pastor and her Lawyer on Saturday afternoon to go over her paperwork. We all sat in her living room while she ate cookies and ice cream! When the lawyer was finished, he asked us all if we had any questions or if we were all set. Everyone nodded that we were set and as he rose to leave, my Mother put down her bowl and died.
She lived such an incredible life. She was born on a small farm in southern Illinois. Her first year of school was in what they called "Country School", an actual one room school house. She remembers having haying parties with the neighbors and taking the horse and buggy to school if the weather was to bad for the school bus to come out to the country. She never forgot her roots and always went back for visits. She couldn't wait to get away though. She loved language and convinced her parents to let her go to college to study English and French. It was there that she met my Dad. The two of them decided to go to Africa together in the early sixties so my Dad applied for a teaching position at a school in Kumasi, Ghana where they spent three years. My oldest sister was born there. My parents loved it there but my Dad wanted his Masters Degree so when the contract was over, they came back to the states so he could go back to school. My Mom stayed at home and had my brother while they were in Washington DC. She supplemented my Dad's meager income by giving piano lessons to the neighborhood kids. In 1966, they got the travel bug again and decided to go back for another stint in Africa. This time they decided on Eastern Africa where my Dad got a teaching job in Ethiopia. When I was born in May of 1969, the country was in a rocky state. Lots of people were telling my parents to leave, but they loved there life there too much to go. One day a trusted colleague of my Father's came to my our house and told my Dad "Now. You have to go NOW". My parents said they could here gun fire right outside the city. We went to the first place that would have us, Athens Greece. I was only six weeks old and very ill from the small pox vaccine that the US required me to have. My Mom said that when she finally unswaddled me in the warm Athens air, she was shocked to see I was just a skeleton. The Greek doctor she took me to put me on a diet of fresh squeezed orange juice!
After twenty years of marriage, my Mom and Dad split up when I was 15. My Mom decided to travel again and took a relocation position with her company. She moved to Windsor, England for three years where she met her second husband. My Dad, not realizing, my Moms plans, also decided to travel and took a sabbatical in Oxford. So, I got to spend my junior year abroad. Oh, how I hated it! Leaving my boyfriend and my friends! But my Mom took me on lots of trips and we got to do and see some amazing things. We lived on Kings Road in Windsor so the Long Walk was in our back yard. We even got so lucky as to be almost run over once by the Queen!
After I had been separated for a little over a year, my Mom thought I should start dating again. I was just so happy to be away from that man who had been so abusive and crazy that I was willing to be alone forever if need be, but my Mom believed in love and really wanted me to have it. She had retired and moved down South with her third man (She wasn't going to marry this one, just love him) but came back up for a visit. She insisted on coming to my house to babysit my four boys so I could go on my first date even though she wasn't feeling so good. I summoned up the courage and went on the date. That was in December. When she wasn't better by January, I asked that she go to the Doctor because I was worried that she had pneumonia. By the time i went to visit her in February, my first date had turned into six dates (with the same guy) and her pneumonia had become lung cancer. I generally live a life with no regrets, but i do wish that she could have gotten to meet this man that is now going to be my husband. She coached me to believe in love but to pay attention to a man's actions not just his words. I need her now to help me figure out the next part of my life!
So, today marks the anniversary of a loss, but like most losses, it is punctuated by the eternal hope that springs from a new beginning.
Thanks for reading!  | 
06-04-2008, 02:21 PM
) Thanks, Angela. And I include us in that toast as well, of course!
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