Life Without Mother

Dear Mom,

The past couple of days have definitely been a roller coaster of emotions. And tonight as I lay here in bed, all I can do is remember those last days. That crazy sequence of events that I thought was leading up to the big day when I became a legal adult. Not the events leading to the day after when adulthood would come upon me in more ways on one day than it could’ve in a whole year with you here. I haven’t had you here to call at the drop of a hat as most girls do when they go off to college. Instead I’ve been left to figure things out on my own, build relationships with more people than I might have if you were there to call, but most importantly (and the one reason I wouldn’t trade what happened for anything—not even an absence of every bit of grief I’ve felt in the past year) is that I’ve had to cling to the one Person that keeps you closest to my heart: God.
Does the joy from my strengthened relationship with God eradicate the pain at not being able to hear your voice at the other end of the line giving me advice or see your smiling face every time I walk through the door on my visits home or feel the warmth of your arms about me as we snuggle and watch Hallmark movies? Of course not. Does the pain from my loss keep me from feeling the joy of my gain and yours? Most certainly no!
Some days (make that hours, minutes, seconds—your pick) are really dark. Tonight was a dark time—and I don’t just mean literally—but with the friendships God has placed in my life and the hold He has on my heart, I have no fear of seeing the light in the morning. How much more do we value the sun after days of rain? So, I have been learning to see the Light in the mourning (pun totally intended).
The past week I have written a lot. Just not to you. It’s been to God. To my Lord and Savior, Jesus, whom you get to see at this very moment! And just the difference tone and yet same message of my last two prayers I think show where my heart is: on the path to not being so broken. God is my everything, Mommy. You showed me what that looked like. You weren’t perfect but I had the privilege of seeing your heart.
I honestly think one of my most my favorite memories was one time back in the ninth or tenth grade when I was so discouraged by my walk with the Lord. It was to the point of tears as I sat in the middle of my bedroom floor when you walked in and listened to my cries of feeling lost and unsure of my calling and whether I even had one. You looked at me with tears in your eyes (one of the few times I ever saw you cry) and told me that you felt the same way many times. You felt that even as I did, feeling like you weren’t seeing where God wanted to use you or that you were so broken, you couldn’t be used. As an adult, as my mother, at a time I thought you had it all together, you felt that way. You were vulnerable with me in a way that I didn’t fully understand because I couldn’t believe it at the time—you, so wise and looked up to and loved by everyone, felt lost without a calling? Now I look back and see the look of truth in your eye, not just sympathy. I see a woman running her race, but not seeing the full path ahead of her, just running in faith that eventually God will reveal His plan. I see a broken human being held together only by the grace and mercy of God through His Son whom she loved so dearly with all of her heart and mind and soul. Now you’ve finished that race, Mom. You did it! And those moments you felt you didn’t have that calling, God was simply calling you in the little things of being my mother. And you did that so well.
I love you, Mom.

Your daughter,
Hannah