Remembering Mom

Posted by Guest | May 13, 2009 | 5 Comments

Judy Kay Frome is the third of eight children and was raised on a small dairy farm in Wyoming. She has five children and three grandchildren and currently lives in Las Vegas, NV where she teaches fourth grade. Her writing has been published in the New Era and the Ensign and at http://earthsignmamawrites.blogspot.com/

It will soon be three years since my mother died. She was anxious to leave, by the end. My dad had died 21 years before, and she never stopped missing him. I understand. She’d been doing okay, not great, but then she suddenly went into decline, and less than three months later was gone. We honored her well at her funeral, we all rejoiced that she was finally free from the decades of pain she’d hid so well from the world, and we know that she and our dad had a wonderful reunion.

But, it doesn’t matter how old you are when you become an orphan, it still feels bad. I haven’t erased her phone number from my cell phone. Her address is still in my contacts. Every year I make Mother’s Day cards with my students in which we write a cinquain poem about their mother. I show them the sample card I made about my mom (it is about 8 years old) and they always ask if I’m going to mail it to her. They get very quiet when I tell them she isn’t alive anymore, but then I say that she was really old, and she is in heaven with my dad, and it breaks the tension. I would love to mail her a card. I compulsively call my sisters in a rotation because I used to call my mom just to chat about the latest trivia concerning my children, and even after three years I still miss having her to tell it to.

I remember when her mother died. I was 19. Grandma had been extremely ill for a couple of years. She’d lived with my aunt and was bedridden, and mostly out of it for a year. She was quite old, too. So, I blithely came home from college for the funeral thinking it was routine. My aunts and mom were up half the night in the kitchen talking, laughing, crying. My grandpa looked lost. He sorted photos at the table. It dawned on me that more than just a little old sick lady had gone. She was the Mother. It was only four years after the tragic death of their youngest brother, an Air Force test pilot, so the sisters were still heart-bruised from that. So, even though their mother was relieved of her burdens, I now know how they felt. Mother is Mother. It’s never a good time for her to go.

But, she left me a good legacy of working hard, being cheerful, being kind and generous, and of always keeping family ties strong and active. So, this Mother’s Day I thought of her fondly and hoped that some far off day* my own children will miss me as much as I miss her.

*(from my lips to God’s ear…”far-off day”)

Comments

5 Responses to “Remembering Mom”

Emily M.
May 13th, 2009 @ 4:12 pm

Ah, this was lovely. My grandma died recently, and your post made me think of her. “It’s never a good time for her to go.”

Thank you.
Emily
May 13th, 2009 @ 9:21 pm

Judy Kay! This is Emily Reed (Bill and Linda Reed’s daughter) from Oxnard. How neat to see you writing on here. What a beautiful tribute to mothers. I’m going to email my mom this link.
Jenny
May 14th, 2009 @ 5:20 am

“…it doesn’t matter how old you are, it still feels bad.” Truer words could not be uttered.
Nice post.
Dovie
May 14th, 2009 @ 2:23 pm

My Grandma came to visit me today. I remember how tenderly she had cared for her mother my Great-grandmother. It was lovingly administered hard work. It was heart wrenching work as Great-grandma regressed mentally and emotionally.

Then one night surrounded by family she was gone. My Grandmother was so sad and expressed a very similar sentiment. She said something like “My mother is my mother no matter what and I miss her so much.” Despite all of the burden she bore in her care and how much her faculties had lapsed she was still her mother no mater what.

Thank you for this post and wonderful sentiment.
Shelah
May 14th, 2009 @ 4:22 pm

Beautiful post! My grandma died this year too, and I know it’s been hard for my dad, even though her death was expected and she was quite elderly. Losing one of my parents is one of my greatest fears– not one I think I’ll ever feel ready to face head-on.