Four Years has gone so fast

I’ve been in tears a good part of the day, not really knowing why.

I don’t know why I can’t remember how these things sneak up on me. The body remembers, no matter what we forget.

My mother passed away four years ago today. And remembering one loss brings up the memories of other losses as well.

While my mom wasn’t a perfect mom, and we had our differences, I loved her very deeply, of course. I’ve tried to emulate the best parts of her nature and worked hard to eliminate those things I picked up from her that I’ve learned I am better off without. The one thing everyone who knew her always brings up is how faithfully she remembered and honored everyone’s birthdays, anniversaries, and other significant events in their lives.

She was a devoted and very faithful religious woman, belonging to the Presbyterian Church where she served as a deacon and women’s circle leader, to Church Women United and to many, many other service organizations. She’s probably the inspiration for my own desire to do therapy dog work with Darwin and to eventually be able to raise and train service dogs. In going through her papers and letters, I found out she, like Mother Theresa, often doubted God’s presence in her own life and felt her faith was lacking, which really surprised me.

I suppose my own lack of faith in religion led me to the search for my own spirituality, to Tao and to many, many other writings on spirituality. I think for me there is a great deal to learn from all religions, faiths, and belief systems, and I doubt I could limit myself to just one. I think overall the ideas of the Tao are the ones I return to again and again, and find repeated over and over in other spiritual systems. My mom used to call me “the daughter I don’t know” – but I think perhaps we were far more alike than she ever realized. I think she was always searching, too, for that perfect expression of her own faith and her spirituality.

Anyway, I miss her a lot, especially when I have to deal with my sister and nephew and things she used to handle. I wish she could see how adorable her great-grandchild Evan is. I wish she and my dad could have been there to see my kids graduate from high school. Instead I ended up dropping off their ashes in Hawaii on a trip after my older son’s high school graduation in 2004.

I am glad I didn’t really remember until after my visit with my shrink today, or I might have been in tears for the whole thing. Instead I talked happily and even got a few laughs from him. He must not think I am so crazy these days, since he seems to have this idea that I ought to join a think tank or something to share my ideas. I suppose in a way this blog and the places I visit and contribute to online are already my contributions to the World Wide Think Tank. He said from a practical viewpoint I ought to be contributing more, and I said, “Well, I guess I’ll have to go all Buddhist on you”. And he said “What do you mean?” And I said, “There is nothing to attain”. He said he didn’t quite get that, and I said “That’s because you’re Jewish and not Buddhist.” And he laughed.

I guess if I were to join a think tank, it would be one working on ways to get people to live more sustainable lives. Not just in terms of using resources, but in terms of sustaining their own well being, their energy, their sheer joy in living. My mom spent so much time and energy caring for others, and so little caring for herself. I can’t help but think if she had let more people know what she needed, let us help her for a change and made sure her medical needs were met, her house cared for when she no longer had the strength to do it, and if she had turned over the care of my sister and nephew to others, she might still be with us. I’ve lost friends who considered me selfish for trying to find ways to get my needs met, and certainly I was then, and maybe still am — but there is a difference between being selfish to get what you need in your life and in just plain having too much stuff that you don’t really enjoy very much just because you can.

I look at the last four years, and how much worse we are off now in this country, in Iraq, the housing situation, the economy about to falter, and I wonder what my mom would think of it all.

But I am kind of glad she’s one more angel on our side.