WOW!

It's been just over a month. I really don't know where that time went. I have been thinking a lot about what I should be blogging about, the stuff on my heart, but just haven't gotten it out of my head. I think it started when I planned to blog about my mom. April 24th was the anniversary of her death, 11 years ago now, and I think that all I wanted to say just got all bottled up making a creative logjam. The ideas were there, just not going anywhere. So this will be a short entry, an attempt to prod loose one log, hoping that will allow enough room for the river to flow again.

I miss her. I need her. And I want her here. I hope I get to be with her again someday and wish I knew for sure. Tomorrow is Memorial Day and I will stand over her grave again. I love you, mom!

(Me & Mom, August 3, 1974)

" You think the dead we loved ever truly leave us? You think that we don't recall them more clearly than ever in times of great trouble? Your [mother] is alive in you... and shows herself plainly when you have need of her."
~Albus Dumbledore, The Prisoner of Azkaban

I am also reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew 12:34-35 '...For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him...' and I know that the times I 'channel' the words of my mother, even the things I swore I'd never say to my kids, that her legacy lives on in me, that she was the one of the ones who stored good things in me. (Bear with me - I know that's not the whole context of the passage above and I encourage everyone and anyone to read it in total themselves. But I do feel God addressing, in me, the idea that when I am overwhelmed and stressed, the characteristics, mannerisms, wisdom and words of my mom are often what comes out of me. And a lot of that is really good.)

I'll be back soon! I have a whole list of things I should have been blogging about!