Life Without Mother

Dear Friend,

This week was the ninth year anniversary of Mom’s Home-going. It’s rather odd to think about — that for a whole third of my life she has not been in it. Someday it will be half, and then a quarter, and soon enough — God willing — I will have lived more life without her than the years with her.

But — and I know she would agree with me on this — even better than “life with mother” is life with my LORD! She taught me that. From day one. Even before I was born, she (and my dad) had already begun her walk of faith in the face of unimaginable grief: the loss of a child. Then, when I came along, I was “trained up in the way I should go” by my parents with the blessed gift of watching them wrestle their way through grief, mental illness, raising four children, moving and then moving again, and all the daily difficulties in between.¹ And I saw joy. So. Much. Joy.

If there were only two things I could say about my parents in their marriage is this: 1) they loved each other and, even more so, 2) they loved God.

Now, nine years later without mother, I see it continued with my father. It never stopped, only grew. I’ve shared before and will say again: he inspires me. Complacency is not an option. Often the idea of “retirement” or even simply being “settled” in our ways becomes more and more acceptable as we age, and yet, I do not see this for my dad. Rather, I see that he walks the path of wisdom as he realizes the more he knows, the more he has to learn about the LORD. And I’m reminded over and over again, if that’s the case for him, how much more so for me, his daughter?

Something sweet from this anniversary of Mom’s Home-going was the opportunity to talk more with Dad directly of that day. To share my memory of it. For him to share how there are other times or circumstances throughout the year that may trigger memories from that time (if not day) and how he’s still learning how to share those. (Obviously, I may still need to learn how not to overshare… hah!)

I’ve found over just the past year how healing these conversations are with my family. And, friend, perhaps you wonder why it’s taken so long. Well, I could say “me, too” but I think that’s one of the things I’ve learned with this journey of grief: even those with “shared” grief don’t always know how to share it.

And this is something I want to write to you about soon, but for now, I sign off with a simple truth through scripture that encourages in all seasons:

There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance…

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4

In all seasons,
Hannah

1. Proverbs 22:6 ↩︎