How can that be? It still doesn't quite seem real, as I'm sure it is for anyone who has lost someone they have loved so much.
My mom was my epicenter and, in so many ways, still is. Somewhere along her journey she told me that she hoped people would not "memorialize" her in such a way that people tend to do after someone dies. She asked that I ensure we would not make her out to be bigger or better than she was during her time on this earth... not to "saintify her". I think of that often when I talk or write about her, especially in such sweeping phrases as the one above.
And yet, that is WHY I feel so free to use such verbiage. My mom was PERFECT in her absolute imperfection.
She loved her wine, wore mom jeans before there were mom jeans, and was never quite in style. She was underemployed and often outspoken.
Sometimes she stayed in her pajamas all day on the weekends and went barefoot outdoors 10 months out of the year. Mama Marian sang unapologetic-ally loud and often accompanied her music with theatrics and peer pressure.
She was self-admittedly perilous behind the wheel (though slower in her middle age years) and famously forgetful of reading glasses, various dates/times/deadlines, and her purpose for coming into any number of rooms in the house.
She often shrunk and discolored the laundry and had a reckless compassion for animals and nature that infuriated neighbors and once depleted a small savings in the name of one dying hamster named Gee.
I can count on one hand the number of times she picked me up from after-school events on time and she strong-armed me into playing the trumpet in 4th grade when all of my friends had already ordered their flutes and clarinets.
My mom hated her job but made fast friends with her co-workers and spoke lovingly about several of her "kids" from the office. There are tales of lime missiles being flung from her drink at a party and landing with precision against the head of one not-so-beloved acquaintance.
One of my childhood friend's favorite stories is of waking up in the wee hours of the morning to my mom dancing across her coffee table during an extended session of "book club."
Sometimes when I close my eyes I can picture her standing with one bare-foot pointed out in our kitchen, flour in her hands and on her clothes, and her head turned over her shoulder with a smile. Usually she is laughing about forgetting an ingredient and still somehow ends up making the most fabulous blueberry pie of the summer.
The thing is, what I love and remember most about my mom was her ability to be unabashedly human. She did her best and laughed at her worst. She taught me to embrace life as it comes and to notice and grab hold of beautiful moments as they arrive. To do this in a way that is meaningful requires also embracing the not-so-beautiful things we want to gloss over and ignore, the times we want to forget and the parts of ourselves we would prefer to erase. When I think of my mother it is that wholeness that I love and miss so much. It is ALL of her that I honor and want others to remember.
My memory of my mother is shrouded in bigger than life imperfection that has made for a cataclysmic love and a proportionately great loss. I like to think she would approve of a not-so-romanticized, honest remembrance of her and would tell you all unabashedly to get off your butts and run for a good cause.
http://www.braintumorcommunity.org/goto/MamaMarian16
http://www.braintumorcommunity.org/goto/MamaMarian16
