Hearts

Every year on this date I use this time to reflect on how it feels to live without a piece of my heart. This year I am particularly taken aback at the fact that it has been 17 years since I last heard my mother's voice. This is almost unimaginable to me. Next year, I will have been without her for as many years as I had her in my life. I let that sink in but it still doesn't feel real. Some years it feels like it's been forever and others it feels like it's been no time at all. This year? I can't quite describe it. The ache isn't there like it is some years. But there are lots of memories. In fact, I really like this feature on Facebook that shows what you've posted in previous years. It's always very interesting on significant dates, like birthdays and anniversaries and even death days. It leads me to pictures like this that make me smile and make me think.

Man, I was lucky. My mom thought I hung the moon. I mean, look at her face when she's hanging out with me. I could have been being the biggest brat ever that day and, let's face it, I probably was. And yet, look at that look of pure love and joy. I totally miss that about her. She loved me with the fire of a thousand suns even when I was being insufferable. I love it when her friends and our family tell me stories about her and her personality before she got sick. So much of my strongest memories are from my high school years when she was really struggling with the Muscular Dystrophy and going through the decline. I love to hear how good she was at softball and how she was a huge goof and a tomboy and that she and my dad threw awesome Halloween parties all the time. (Apparently, they were super fun when they were younger.) I see her joy in the pictures of her with me when I was little, too. They waited so long for a kid of their own that by the time I got here, she was completely enamored by me. (That could maybe explain partially why I was such a turkey when I was that age but...thankfully, I turned out okay. Mostly.) I try to keep her alive in Bennett's heart by telling funny stories about her. I like that occasionally he will come out with something randomly and attribute it to Grandma Sharon. For example, a while back I was talking to someone about signs from Heaven and they were saying that sometimes loved ones will leave coins to let you know they are thinking of you. For this person, their loved one leaves dimes around and every time she finds a dime in an unusual place she immediately thinks of the person she loves. I thought it was SO interesting when we had that conversation because even though my mom's been gone a long time, I never really felt any signals like that. Maybe the occasional playing of Amazing Grace randomly or a strong desire to pull out the bottle of Navy perfume from my secret hiding place and sniff it. But nothing really tangible usually. After that conversation, I started finding quarters. I will find them in the MOST ridiculous places now. I may drop an ink pen in my classroom and find a quarter under the laminator beside my desk. Or go to find a paperclip and find a quarter in the basket with the post-it notes. Or at home I'll be walking along and see a quarter in the middle of the floor where it's unlikely to have been dropped from a purse or pocket. Or I'll see one under the bathmat in the bathroom. It's super weird, but it always makes me smile. (And then I save the quarters. I have quite a collection.) So, now that Bennett knows this happens he feels like she speaks to him through pennies. He'll find a random penny somewhere and exclaim, "Oh, Grandma Sharon! You're so funny." It's pretty adorable. Other times he'll tease me when I'm being fussy or when I say something in a really country accent and be like, "Mommy, you sound like Grandma Sharon." I kind of love it. And I love that he has something of my mom to feel connected to. It's pretty cool. So even though this date is really hard every year, I'm glad that there are those years when I can take time to reflect on what my mother meant to me and how incredibly blessed I am to have had a mother like her. She was a tiger mom - she would fight for me until her last dying breath if she thought that I had been slighted. She was tough and strict and she drove me absolutely crazy with her overprotectiveness. She had ridiculous opinions that were so conservative when compared to my more liberal views and we did not see eye to eye on many issues. She was tough and firm but also gave the shirt off her back to those in need. She could be so sensitive sometimes and we would fight like cats and dogs. She was nosy as all get out, chasing fire trucks and ambulances around our small town in the summer when she was bored. She loved sweets and treats and we spent a lot of time hanging out around food. (I didn't mind.) She said the most hilarious things and would butcher even the most basic of Southern colloquialisms. She loved the people that I loved, particularly the ones that she knew would have my back when she was no longer around - and those friends loved her with a fierceness, too. Basically she was the best mom and friend anyone could ever want. I love her with all my heart and miss her with all my soul. I know that the missing piece of my heart will never ever be filled but I wouldn't want it to be. She was the perfect imperfect mom and I only hope I am half the woman that she was.