Remembering Mom

 

January 24, 2009,

 

Betty Jane Harrell, born July 24, 1919.

 

Mom died yesterday, January 23, 2009, and I feel lost, because her being part of my life is all I’ve ever known for almost sixty four years. Her passion for life, her dedication to her children, and her willingness to forgive almost anything were her strengths. She was always compared to her father, but was more like her mother, after all. She was strengths and weakness, all wrapped into a blanket of Catholic faith and contradictions.  

She went back to her set aside Catholic faith in 1951, a product of her bargain with God to return to the faith if He would spare me the terrible consequences of Polio. She volunteered at the March of Dimes to help pay back the financial help they provided to pay the medical bills from my dread disease.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

 

She was all about family picnics and parties. We had most holidays in Flint with her mom and dad, and summers on the beach at Sylvan Lake, only a few blocks from home on Josephine. She relished the Sunday football game and forgave the Lions their years of ineptitude. She liked to drink and smoke, and like others with her genes, was a fun loving Irishwoman, trapped in an unforgiving German conscience, with a Scottish parsimony when needed.

 

She was full of dos and don’ts and most of the predicted dire consequences of our actions came to pass with alarming accuracy. She did not enjoy seeing her country, and the heritage of World War Two, compromised by what she considered the new socialism. She became a staunch conservative at the last, watching O’Reilly and Fox news on cable.

 

She had regrets and heartaches too. The red haired daughter stillborn when I was three was a keen loss. She missed her dad every day she was alive, and he wasn’t. She never completely reconciled her feelings for her mother. She was disappointed in all the changes in marital status of her kids, but she seldom said anything to any of us about it. She loved her grandchildren and great grandchildren and wanted them to be around her often.

 

The life lessons from her came with predictions, but never with instructions. I was left to figure out the owner’s manual on my own, often with inconsistent results.

 

She was, after all, my mother, and loved me with a mother’s love. All bound and tied with her clear desire to see me more than she did. Her parting words always entreating me to return soon, imploring me to move closer to her.

Loss of a Mother Poem- Author Unknown

Now that I am gone

Remember me with smiles and laughter

And if you need to cry

Cry with your brothers and sister, who walk in grief beside you

And when you need me

Put your arms around anyone

And give them what you need to give to me

There are so many who need so much

I want to leave you something, something much better than words or sounds

Look for me in the people I’ve known or helped in some special way

Let me live in your heart as well as in your mind

You can love me most

By letting your love reach out to our loved ones

By embracing them and living in their love

Love does not die, people do

So, when all that’s left of me is love

Give me away the best you can

I don’t know how my life will end, or when, but I know the first person I expect to see in heaven is my mother. She will be making a meatloaf (without green pepper please) and baking a chocolate pie for her eldest. She will have a drink on the table and a cigarette in the ashtray. She will be still complaining about the Lions failure to win the Superbowl (perhaps then measured in decades or centuries) and she will be full of stories about all of her friends and family she has reconnected with in the great beyond. Grandma Belle Erkes, Pat and Waldo Pepper, Jim and Ginny Greenwood, Beulah and George Leach, Charlie and Eva Grace Hall, John O’Hearn and Bob Glass. Her favorite aunt, Beatrice, Don and Ruth McDonald, Uncle Pete, her step grandfather, and all the many people she touched during her life. She will still be riding herd on my father and visiting Irene and Dick (Mom and Dad) every day, just as she did for so many years in Pontiac. She will be listening to Jack Hagan play all her favorite songs on the organ and dancing with her favorite partner, my dad Dan. The old Elks club will be there too, filled with all the nights of bowling and good times with friends she could wish for.

Thinking about her now that she’s gone brings a flood of emotion. I’m glad that at last she is no longer a prisoner of a dying body, and that at last she can bask in the love of Christ and enjoy all of her friends and family. My selfish heart though cries out for her and mourns her leaving me alone in this crazy world. For almost sixty four years she was always there when I called her name.