Stella Therapy

I NEED to keep talking about Mom. I now understand why grief support groups can be so helpful.....those of us who are grieving cannot just "move on", not without working THROUGH our grief. And so I blog....

February 7th (a month to the day that she went home to Jesus) came & went, and I had hoped to accomplish something "significant" in memory of Mom...something to make her proud...although proud is not the word she would want me to use because she believed and taught me that pride, any pride, is relying on self instead of God....so let me say that I simply wanted to her to be "pleased" & "blessed".....

Neal & I went to a nursery/greenhouse to look at plants & trees & such on Saturday, and it was so good to be outside in the sunshine....oh, how Mom loved to be outside and loved the sunshine. Each day in her journal, she started out with a notation about the weather giving the temperature and whether it was sunny, clear, cloudy, etc....such a funny thing to me that she would notice and write this information down. But then again, it makes perfect sense to me now that I look back and remember how much of her time was simply spent sitting in her chair as she looked out her sliding glass doors every day because she could do little else, given the advancement of the bone cancer.

Have I mentioned that Mom was once a very tall woman? She was about 5'9" originally. She'd shrunk a little over the last 10 or so years due to osteoperosis, but nothing like what happened when the cancer took over. We received a mailed report from her primary care doctor after she died, and it showed that she was only 5' the last time he saw her.....astounding that cancer can steal so much from you physically! Praise God, it didn't steal her joy or her peace or her faith or her "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" attitude!

So, what did I end up doing on Saturday? Not much, except for having a gloriously, stress-free day with my Neal doing a few errands together. It was late afternoon when we finally got back home, but I wanted to plant some pansies & stonecrop perennials around the mailbox....the sun was already going down, but I just wanted to get my hands in the dirt. So, I took my spade and cleaned out the old to make room for the new and got alot of good, rich dirt under my fingernails....I just don't like to wear gloves when I'm planting...too constricting.

The evening was so lovely, I didn't want to go inside even though it was starting to get cool. I shouldn't have stayed out so long because I've been sick, but I longed to spend a little quiet time thinking about Mom. So I made my way to the bench under the big oak tree in our front yard and sat down. The moon was almost full and unbelieveably bright & beautiful. I just couldn't quit looking at it nor stop thinking about "here" is not where she is anymore and trying to comprehend just "where" it is that she is...yes, I know that she's in heaven, but exactly where is heaven located...yes, I know in the heavenlies, but again alot of what we say is so vague....bear with me as I simply wonder about all these things.....

And, as I sat there pondering, I recalled how she would do this funny little game when I was young, mostly when we traveled in the car, about the moon.....she'd say, "the moon, the moon, the big round moon, two eyes, a nose and a mouth" and as she said the words, she would trace in the air with her finger. And, as I reminisced about that, I could have sworn that I saw a faint outline of Mom's face there in the "face" of the moon.....it probably wasn't there, and was only something I wanted to see, but it made me grin just the same. And as I sat there enjoying the glorious night that God had provided. that's when I realized I was probably doing exactly what would have brought pleasure to Mom (or maybe it actually did?!)...I took the time to be awed by my God, as Creator, & His magnificent handiwork. Yea, I think if Mom had been in Charlotte visiting, she'd have been sitting right beside me , enJOYing it all as much as me.