“I observe, I write, I try not to remember the life that I didn’t want to lose but lost and have to remember.”
~ Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The other day I chatted briefly with on of the residents at the care home where my mother-in-love now resides. She told me how much she missed her parents-in-love, her own parents, and her daughter who died a few years ago. I got it.
I miss so many too; I miss the sense of belonging and the connection. I sometimes think about what life might have been like had my family remained in Saskatchewan. I sometimes wonder what kind of person I might have become if I had the blessing of an extended family around me throughout my life.
Feeling more nostalgic than usual right now with Mother’s Day around the corner I suppose. I’m thinking of both of my mothers and fathers, all of my siblings, my aunts and uncles, and others I wish I could share an afternoon visit with. I think heaven will be a place where that sense of belonging I had so briefly will return in spades; and this time it will last forever.
Yesterday I tweaked a piece I wrote a few years ago about searching for the grave of the woman who gave me life (https://lindahoye.com/searching-still-searching/) I wrote it in 2012 right after the experience; it still smarts when I read it and remember.
# # #
Today, cleaning house, a bit of shopping, and coffee with friends.
I think Mothers Day can bring some deep reflection in all of us Linda. Should I have done things different? How difficult life may have been for the women in our lives, both past and present. What will The future bring our daughters? we can only hope for peace and unlimited happiness.
We take a certain path, always fraught with uncertainty, with some choices beyond our control. You have made the best of it, Linda. Still, I know you ache for what might have been. The Foer quote, so poignant, just like your post.
Happy Mother’s Day to you and all the mothers in your life now!
I wish that everyone could have a completely awesome Mother’s Day, but I know many that don’t. Some from abuse, some from other family-related sad memories. I am happy and sad on Mother’s Day, missing my own wonderful mom and my wonderful Aunt Agnes, who helped raise me. Both gone now. I am blessed to be where I am right now, though the path to “here” has often been disturbed by many wrenches in the works, bumps in the road. But I am happy to have withstood it all – otherwise, I wouldn’t be here now. And here is such a lovely place.
“Here is such a lovely place”. I love that, Karen.