This past Saturday marked thirty years since my mother went to Heaven. She died of breast cancer in 1995 at the age of 62. I’m older now than she was when she died. She would be 92 now and few of her contemporaries are still living. Yet, her mother lived to be 95 and was mentally and physically healthy until the last year of her life. We can’t always count on good genes, but I still feel like my mother was cheated out of her golden years.
She taught school for 35 years, including a couple of years after she was diagnosed. When her illness necessitated retiring, she wasn’t able to enjoy all the things she had looked forward to. Working with the ladies’ guild at my dad’s church. Playing bridge and tennis with her friends. Coaxing my dad into travel. And spending more time with her grandchildren.
She loved every single child that crossed the threshold of her classroom and could tell you all their names. She wasn’t a pushover, though. She could mete out discipline along with the love. Don’t ask me how I know this.
Her family and her God were the most important things in her life. She marked every milestone of friends and relatives, always ready to offer congratulations, support, or comfort. She was thrilled to become a grandmother and spoiled my girls almost as much as my brother and I were spoiled by her parents. (I’ve tried to keep up the tradition.)
There is so much that she missed, though. She was able to attend my brother’s wedding and our first cousin’s. But she never knew their children who are all grown now. She didn’t see her granddaughters graduate from high school and then college. Or marry. She never met her four great-grandchildren. One of whom will be off to college himself in the fall.
It’s hard for me to fathom all that’s happened and all she has missed. My dad at least got to watch all his grands grow up and met two of his greats.
One event I’m glad neither of them had to face was the death of their granddaughter. Just two months after her wedding, which they would have proudly attended had they been living. My mother’s soft heart would have broken in two at the loss of Rachel. Daddy would have been devastated. It helps my hurting heart to know that they were there to greet her as she walked through the pearly gates. Both Mama and Rachel probably wearing high heels and carrying a designer purse.
I realize that almost every occasion and milestone in my life now I put in context of losing my daughter. I don’t dwell on her death. I love my life, my family and friends. As I said last week, I am blessed and content. Still, I can’t help but think of her, my mother, and so many other loved ones when we celebrate or commemorate significant events. I know I shouldn’t mourn what they’ve missed. They have attained what I aspire to.
But I miss them anyway.
Laura
A Light for My Path 
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