Love of My Life Snatched Away

On a cold day in December 1964, the doors of paradise opened and welcomed my mom. My twenty-year example and love of my life were snatched away from me with the closing of her eyes.

Drowning in tears, I saw her peaceful face. She wore this newfound peace well as she sped into God’s arms.

I stood as stone. Other girl’s moms were supposed to die, not my mom. Fed by watching her wane to skin and bone and hollow temples across her face, I should have been happy her suffering days were over, but fear crept up my backbone. The hair danced on my arms. But still, I wanted her alive. What would I do now?

How would I go on?

I pondered now, as her daughter, how I patterned my life after hers. I watched her live and react to her trials and experiences. I mapped her character and endurance as I watched her buoy courage to allow my life to be better than hers. She went beyond the limit to provide everything I needed. I was honored to be her daughter.

During the intersection of my loss and pain, I realized my pattern was gone. She had cared and nurtured me in this daily habitat as the pattern of life for me had been established. It was secure and stable. But now, I was on my own.

Death had decreased half my family’s parents. She would never see me walk down the aisle. She would never hold my children in her arms. We would all miss this joy. Coping was difficult. It was like a dull toothache. "What now? Not me." I sobbed.

Life moved along as life does. Then I passed her age of death. The person who loved me unconditionally, this seamstress left me for the second time. Now, I was really on my own. I had to learn to handle life like an uncharted voyage, a dress without a form. I became a dress designer of sorts.

Jane Johnson, veteran RN at Roswell, New Mexico’s Hospice Center said "The burden of grief is the same for all motherless daughters. But it’s doubled when you live beyond your mother’s age of death. Your mom is your role model. Your comparison guide is gone, and now you are on your own".

There were not enough marshmallows in the world to stop-up or patch-up the hole in my heart. She was my mother. She wasn’t supposed to die. I wasn’t ready to hem this dress. I would have worn it tattered.

But I was lucky in love. My husband is so much like my mom.

It hurts: their gestures, their sense of humor, their love of life, their care for others and others’ feelings, even their birthdays are just three days apart on July’s calendar. I was not ready to close this book, but he opened a new chapter for me. We write in it daily. My misfortune turned into a future with pinking shears. God cut me a windfall when He positioned Pat Meeks into my world. My clothes are designer clothes that would not be worn by anyone else.

In Hope Edelman’s Motherless Daughters, she states, "My mother’s death completely rocked my world. Mothers are immortal.

Mothers don’t die young. Mothers never leave the children they love." She also knows mothers aren’t the permanent glue we always thought they were.

Hardships of being a motherless daughter have made me a stronger person. I know that God does not put more on us than wecan handle. I know that I’ve had the greatest mom, and I know I have the greatest spouse. I tire wondering where her fashion would have led me. I don’t know how different I would be with her still alive, but I’m learning to be content with where I am and when the pain won’t stop, I ask Pat Meeks for a hug. And he hugs me just like she did before she was snatched away.

© 2003 Carol Dee Meeks http://home.midsouth.rr.com/kmhomepage/index.html