Mom
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Get checked! Besides being a month of reminders for all women in all walks of life to be aware of their own bodies and to get regular check ups, it happens to be my mom’s birthday month.
Those two together put her on my mind even more than she already is on a daily basis. You see, I lost my mom to breast cancer in 2007. I don’t think there is ever a good age to lose your mom, at least no one has ever said there was. Even if your mom lives a long healthy life to be 100, I still don’t think you would be ready to lose her. Moms are unique in our lives and are unable to be replaced.
Not only do I feel my mom was too young, I was, and am, too young to be mom-less. And add into the mix my husband walking out and my world turning upside down shortly after her death. Who was I to lean on? Who was to comfort me? Who would be my rock?
Even though my mom was not physically with me during this turmoil, this major detour in my life, she was still guiding me and holding me up. You see, my mom taught me survival skills I didn’t know I needed. My mom taught me how to persevere, how to keep going forward when we didn’t know how and didn’t believe we could. My mom taught me that it was okay to not be at the top of our game every minute. These were not things my mom necessarily spoke to me, but things I learned by watching her, watching her live her life, watching her love and raise my sister and I, watching her love without end her grandchildren. My mom loved and supported me in good times and bad.
Even when the cancer or treatments were bad, she was always sure to be there for me. I can only hope and pray I was what she needed me to be during her most difficult times.
My Mom, although not physically here, is still my comfort and my rock. She has also passed on many of those traits to my sister, thankfully, as I now have a physical “rock” in my life.
Treasure your time with your mom. Make efforts to call her more, see her more, spend time with her more, because one day she will no longer be around and you won’t be able to.
Cherish her.
I have to believe my mom watches over me from Heaven and is proud of who I am and how I live my life, that I have done her proud by what she sees in my kids.
The picture at the top states, “My mom taught me everything except how to live without her,” to which I must reply, “OR DID SHE?”
There isn’t much I wouldn’t give up to have my mom still here with me. But perhaps, before she left, she did indeed teach me how to go on…
Picture taken at the end of 60 miles as I walked in memory of my mom.