Grateful

 

The other day I was talking to Kim.  Just 11 months younger than me, I sometimes forget who is older sometimes.  "You okay?" she asked, as our conversation was coming to an end.  After briefly discounting her question, I realized she was referring to this very blog.  I quickly took a short breath, unsure of her next sentiments.  "Just making sure you're okay."  That was the extent of our conversation.  My sister and I can fill the seas with our dialogue.  Other times, our silence gently lends to an easy understanding with one another. 

 

Honestly, when I first started all of this, I was only thinking of myself.  Self-pity and lonliness accompany each other well.  When Kim brought this up, I was reminded that there are two other people who do know what I am feeling. There are two other people who lived alongside me in our two bedroom mobile home.  There are two other people who lost the same mother.  I remember standing between Kim and Dan on the day they buried Mom.  We had front row seats as her casket was lowered.  As the pulleys easily worked to placed my sweet/feisty/tenacious mother into the ground, each of my hands gripped tightly onto the only people who truly, truly understood me in that life moment. 

 

I am grateful for my brother and sister.  I know we were our mother's entire world.  To a fault.  She would sew for 10 hours a day to buy us namebrand jeans.  She would work in a Chrysler factory for years to find money to pay for  knock-off Cabbage Patch dolls, band instruments, crossiants.  When she no longer worked because of the stupid cancer, she crocheted holiday pins for me to sell at my Student Government meetings in college.  "Maybe sell them for $3? I can make a bit of money."  I still have those pins.   

 

Mom's happiness was directly tied to the three of us.  Her joy was the fruits of an unseen, but strongly felt, umbilical cord that fed her soul and attached to her three offspring.  She was careful not to boast about our accomplishments; nonetheless, every wall in our home was embellished with shadow boxes of insignificant medals we earned in school and newspaper clippings with our pictures at coloring contests/science fairs/perfect attendance ceremonies.  She loved us too much, and we are better for it.  

Kim, Dan and I hold the pages to Mom's stories.  Together, we find ways to live her life.  Together, we have not been able to recreate her eggrolls, tell her stories, make her fruit pizza.  The part that really makes this all count is that we do it together.  For all that my mother has taught me and has given me, I cannot be more grateful for my brother and my sister.    I just need to remind myself that this journey has been buffered by two earth angels who come from the same genetic pool.