Maternal Connection

If my mother could be still alive, today she would be celebrating her 104th birthday.   But she left 33 years ago, at the age of 81, having been born in New Orleans near the close of the 19th century.


It always seemed really fitting to me that our birthdays were so close together.  This past 27th marked the interesting point when I had been in the world for 79 years, right down to the minute and second.

It was never the tradition in my immediate family to visit cemeteries and bring flowers and all that.   People had left for good and that was it.

I think the sorrow felt was always too great for anything else.   I know that was true in my case and in my mother's.   And in the case of the more recent deaths, the remains of most haven't been left in cemeteries but instead have been put into cremation jars.  But I still do remember where everybody is, for the most part.

My mother still lives and speaks and moves around, however, in my daytime thoughts and in my nighttime dreams.  The incidents aren't true to life, but that's the nature of dreams. 

My mother was loving.   My mother was strong.   My mother was complex.  My mother was all-sacrificing.   My mother was a trip.  My mother was resourceful.  And I could keep going on and on with that.   But I won't.

I just want to say that it's incredible how closely bound in the matters of life and death mothers are with their children, much more so than in any other kind of human relationship.

This must mean that when a mother is born, so also is her child, and when she dies, the child may not also go just then, but that still starts the process of his eventual departure, too.