This post will be long. It’s been an emotional day for me and I am choosing to be vulnerable and open. If you don’t read any further, do me a favor and call, text, hug, check in or reconnect with someone who makes you feel safe, loved, seen, heard and not alone. Let them know that you think of them that way. Know that you are lucky and blessed to at least have one person in your life who makes you feel this way.
This is one of my favorite pictures of my beautiful mom. Today is her birthday, March 4. I’ve been without her in my life for the past 40 years. Grief can be a real beast. I unfortunately learned this emotion early on by losing my mom at the age of 12. Grief never goes away and reappears at different times of your life. I have felt my mom‘s absence more in the last two challenging years of my life more than I have in a long time. I was with friends the other night and one said, “you know I just need a hug from my mom“. I still feel that way, even after all these years.
I see my mom still. In my dreams, when looking through photo albums, in my baby book where she meticulously handwrote the details and events of my childhood. I touch and wear pieces of her jewelry. I purposely wear a bracelet of hers, when I know I need courage and support. I taste some of her favorite foods, even if they are not mine. I hear her and her friends moving their Mahjong tiles as I sit with my girlfriends during our weekly games. I smell her favorite perfume, as I still have the bottle and make sure it never runs out. I feel the difference that she made in young people‘s lives as I followed in her footsteps and became a teacher.
But the best of all is, I know what she instilled in me from being a mom myself. Raising my two children has been the greatest joy of my life, and I felt closest to my mom when I became a mother myself. I can wallow and be sad that my children have never met her, but I am so grateful that I get to talk to my children every day and watch them reach their milestones and follow their dreams. I get to be the mom to them that I wish I had for myself. I without a doubt hit the jackpot. My mom would have cherished every moment being with her grandchildren. My daughter is named after her.
Oh mom, how I miss and love you so very much. I will keep on marching fourth, standing strong and independent, knowing that you are my angel. I know you are looking down on me and reminding me that life is beautiful.
Until we meet again. xo
Guest post by Kim Rusert, teacher and mother of two
