what i didn't get to say

It's been over two weeks since my Mother passed. Over one week since her funeral.

There is not one second of my breath that doesn't hurt with the loss of her. There are countless times through the day that I go to pick up the phone and call and then fall into tears because she will not answer. Sometimes, though, I do call. I call just to hear her voice on the phone that is still connected. I want to cradle her voice and make it into a person again.

My brother and sisters are trying to deal in their own way. There is so much we can do for each other and so much that we can't. Face Time is spent crying at each other. Reliving moments, good and bad. Regrets. What ifs. If onlys.

I wanted to speak at the funeral.
The priest said in his experience it proves to be too difficult and I had to agree. I didn't think I could get through it. We could have had someone read it. But instead we gave it to the priest and asked if he could read it in its entirety. He did not. Instead he incorporated some of what I wrote into his own homily. I wanted people to know it was from us, not from a stranger grasping at finding a way to sum up someone he didn't know.

I wanted people to know her as we did.

My mother and I didn't always get along.
When I was growing up we fought hard and loud battles. There were years of estrangement but eventually, as adults, we came together. I will forever be grateful for this. Our closeness grew and we talked a lot. We had visits and took vacations together with our family.  For these things I am thankful. Our memories sustain us now. I have images of her with crossword puzzles, asking us for answers and scratching out what she had already written in ink.Luckily there were many laughs. Her children loved to make fun of her quirkiness and she loved to let us.

I want to share what I wrote for her, the words I never got to say or have heard in public. As I shift through regret, anger, sadness, denial, acceptance, I want to have these words to support me.

In times like these, times of loss, we look to find meaning. We look for lessons and reasons. We want our lives to mean something, to leave a lasting legacy. We wonder if we've made a difference.  

 At the age of 60, our Mother reflected on her life and thought that she hadn't done much. She decided to travel to Afghanistan as a civilian to work supporting our troupes in Kandahar. On her way there she stuck up a conversation with a woman on a plane. This woman turned out to be Christie Blatchford, a columnist for The Globe and Mail who later wrote an article about meeting a woman named Bobbi from Cape Breton and what brought her to the Middle East. 

 I learned something from this article that I had never known. 
Our mother was scared. 

 She told the reporter "When I got married I was scared to death. When I had my kids I was scared to death. When I got divorced I was scared to death" 

 This thought never occurred to me. My Mother never showed her fear. She was fierce and feisty, never held back from speaking her mind. It's funny how what can embarrass you as a child can empower you as an adult. 

 She was afraid, and yet she still moved forward. She was scared but it didn't stop her, it didn't hold her back.  

 This is the lesson we can all take away from how my Mom lived.

It's okay to be afraid. It's okay to scared. But don't let it hold you back. Don't let it keep you from doing things, trying things, saying things. 

 When my Mother received her diagnosis, I know she was afraid. But she accepted it and wasn't going to let it keep her from moving forward. She told the doctor then "I have no regrets. I love my children and I know they love me. And I know they know how much I love them" 

And it is true. 

We were lucky that we knew it. We didn't wait until she was ill to tell her and each other. We knew it because she told us and she showed us. 

There is also a lesson in this. Don't be afraid to tell those you love how you feel. Be afraid that it will be too late if you don't.  

 We are devastated to lose her and will miss her in countless ways, big and small. But we are also joyous. We are joyous in our memories of laughter and funny stories. We are grateful to have had her. She made us a family. She gave us the gift of each other. 

And we will go forward for her and because of her. Even though we are afraid. 

Her strength was greater than her fear and it is her strength that what will carry us, just as it always has.