Saying Goodbye To My Mother

My mother has made her self-guided, one-way journey crossing over the human rainbow bridge. 

I pray she gazed upward with curiosity at the rainbow’s full-color spectrum as she arrived at tranquility station.

If heaven exists in a parallel universe that we cannot see with our naked eyes that’s just over the horizon behind an inviting light, I hope she smiled and felt at home. 

I hope there are other beings nearby her that she recognizes, she feels, and they welcomed her presence for eternity. 

I hope she found her new residence at the perfect intersection for peace and happiness. 

I hope she discovered a forever Christmas morning.

Or, just maybe, she gets to be an innocent baby and start all over again?

None of us know the answer on our side of the existential light. 

Even so, as we all know and feel, death creates a finality. There will be no reunions or telephone conversations. Life happens in the present tense. 

I’m glad she’s no longer in any physical pain. 

The funeral, or what’s known these days as a celebration of life ceremony, will happen via the ZOOM platform. We are not a close bunch of humanoids, but even for us, it seems a rather cold method for a family ritual.

I’ll not write about my mother’s memory without expressing a few truths.

For a variety of reasons, our relationship remained strained and distant.

For decades, my mother endured domestic abuse and was repeatedly disrespected. Because of her, I have a soft spot for abuse victims. I have a soft spot for anyone trying to rebound from trauma. 

I get my creative spirit from my mother.

When I was a child, she made amazing wedding cakes. And she had a kind, childlike personality and for the most part an open book.

When I was a child I never went hungry.

I think those are the memories I’ll grasp and hold close. 

Mother, I loved you from afar.  Rest In Peace.

Your Son.