I miss you, Mum

Beth asked me if I was doing anything to commemorate today. Three years ago today our mum died.

I got her email asking me this at the end of a very busy day. I taught Sunday School to one very well-behaved girl named Emily and two very rambunctious boys (thank goodness for girls!). Then I sat through what I found to be an emotional church service. After that I rushed off to a Refugee Support Group meeting that lasted almost two hours. Someone graciously drove me home at which point I grabbed the keys to the car, the coffee cake I made and drove to my first knitting lesson (thank goodness there was hummus and pita at the meeting after church).

By dinner, I was exhausted, had a splitting headache and thought, yeah, I commemorated mum today... by overextending myself, saying yes to everyone, no to nobody and ending up tired and with a headache. Just like she would have done! As I put my dinner into my mouth - a hotdog wrapped in a piece of bread with ketchup - my first thought was how mum used to make this for me all the time and how much she loved it, too. And then I thought about how many times a day I have these moments, doing something seemingly meaningless and everyday, how many times a day I think of her still, how she will always be with me through my days because of all the wonderful, everyday, seemingly meaningless things there are that remind me of her.

And it is all so meaningful.

And I realized that although my commemoration of today was really a headache that reminded me of her and how I can be so like her, sometimes in ways that she would chastise me over, the ways that I really commemorate her all the time are through things I can celebrate everyday and that is the best commemoration of all.