One of the most important women in my world...

Today is my mom's birthday, or rather it would be. She would have turned 72 today had cancer and an inept doctor not taken her from me in 1993. It took me years to realize it, but she's still with me...in things I say, the way I do certain things, many of the good things about who I am. She taught me the value of sending a woman flowers, she inspired me to care about people, taught me to cook, taught me to read, to appreciate quiet times with good people. She loved bicycle rides and popcorn and hot tea with honey, she loved watching birds...the black cap chickadees around our house would land on her and eat seeds from her hand. Her laugh was so loud and free and readily released, at times as a kid it embarrassed me....now it's one of the echoes in my head of which I am most fond. Her toothy smile, her freakishly long toes, her favorite sweater, the way she got as excited about Christmas as us kids...these things always make me smile.

She hit me once. I was about 16 and a string of foul words describing my dad had just erupted from my mouth after he and I had fought. She snapped out and punched me with all her meager might dead square in the center of my chest. Now, I've been hurt by others in my life. I've been cheated on by a girlfriend, I've been insulted and accused of ill intentions by another woman I've loved...I've been punched, slapped, kicked, burned with cigarettes and even hit with a pool cue. That angry TAP in the chest from my little mom stands out as one of the most painful things anyone's ever done to me. Because I know how bad I must have hurt her for her to act so contrary to her personality and strike out at me. In that too, she taught be a couple of important things.

When her cancer came back and she was in the hospital wasting away my dad was there pretty much 24 hours a day. The nurses let him stay after visiting hours and even gave him access to the non-public areas so he could grab something to eat or wash up whenever he had a chance to slip away for a few minutes. Even toward the end when she had been unresponsive to anyone or anything for a few days, he was there. I don't think anyone expected her to ever come around again. One day she did. She made a little noise and looked at him. She tried to talk but was so weak hardly anything came out. He moved closer to her and still couldn't understand her. She was trying to lift her arm but was simply too weak, her little body too ravaged by cancer and drugs. Guessing at what she wanted, he carefully lifted her frail arm up and put it around his neck. Suddenly this weak little lamb had the strength of a tiger. She pulled him down to her so tightly he didn't think he could have pulled away if he'd wanted. She gasped "love you" into his ear and then slipped back to sleep. She wouldn't wake up again and died shortly after but, and I'm sure some will think I over romantisize this, her final goodbye moves me every time I think about it. All but gone, this woman who was no physical powerhouse even in her healthy prime, had the strength of will to tell Death to just back off for a minute so she could have one last moment with the man she loved and found the physical strength to hold him almost too tightly for just a few seconds. That says something to me...about her...about love.