Portrait on a Disappearing Canvas: The other side of Mother's Day

I love you mom, I love you son

isn't that the way it's designed to be?

And oh when that way is so, so good is that way.

Today is a day of celebration

for many whose way this has been

It is also a day whose burden is heavy

Something was awry in the way we were

There was no doubt love

there could be no other way

yet something or someone had changed

from the way they used to be

to the way I remember it to be.

For all of us who have experienced the simultaneous joy of love, the confusion and heartbreak of miscommunication and misunderstanding, let it be said that there is still love that remains, no matter what has transpired, no matter what the circumstance. The balance of life will have it no other way.

Though my mother was uneducated, emotionally distraught and abused in ways only she could acknowledge by family, friends and herself, she put a roof over my head, she fed me enough food for my physical growth, she protected me and she nurtured me in a very important way. Though she often was too worn out physically and emotionally to express it, I knew I was loved. It didn't even matter that sometimes there seemed to be conditions attached to that love. I know it was there, even through the pain of negativity which, at times, haunts me today.

How do I know I was loved? Time! Time has been my teacher. Time has allowed me to see through the vale. Time has made available the presence of other mother relationships. Not my own, there can be no substitution, no replacement, but relationships for my personal viewing, for my edification and for my continued nurturing, even in my season of aging.

The lessons are many

some more profound than others

Deeply grateful for the balance of life

I can now see through the vale to the core

It was not my mother teaching me through love

it was my time to be taught by the love of this mother.

I will only understand it intellectually as I am able

Emotionally I will know because it never ends

Thanks Mom, for your effort. I miss you deeply

I am still alive, still growing and still learning

how to be...

an impossibility without you!

My mother crossed over on February 23. 1985.

After 28 years I can barely remember her face without a photograph.

Her voice is now just a whisper, so faint there are no echoes

I can no longer see her eye to eye, though we often didn't see life that way anyway

I can no longer feel the squeeze of the hugs that were few and far between

The memory is so distant I have to strain to remember how good it was when it was good

But I know it happened and my regret is that I didn't contribute more to the relationship than I took.

I hope that has changed me, is changing me,

And of all that does remain, still, there is love!