Five Years

I woke up to a day just like the one five years ago; the bluest of skies, lightest of breezes, and sweetest of late summer/early fall weather.  There are some moments and experiences that I feel I cannot wholly contribute to coincidence and today feels like one of them.  Just as I did the day I learned our daughter would be coming into the world right around your birthday in November.  Grief is complicated like that.  The pain can cut so unbearably deep and then a memory or a moment can turn on a dime and bring about all of the goodness that was inherent before there was death.  

While going through some old emails today I came across this one from 2006 in which my mom reflects on her own mother's death: 

"But speaking of my Mom, it really does bug me that it's so final.  Death is so final!  I can't call her, I can't talk to her, I can only picture her in my head doing the things I like to remember, like laughing at my jokes, and allowing me to try to teach her to dance when I was in college, and coming to help me when Jeff was born and I had no idea how to anything for a baby,and trying to tell me that I shouldn't scold you young'uns about every little thing (that didn't work, either), yada yada, yada.....  I miss my good Mom!"

My mom wrote those words about her mom and I have so often written and said similar words myself. The finality of death is what inherently baffles and frustrates us all. On days like today I am reminded that there are pieces of my mom everywhere and she is still present, albeit not as she once was.  She is here in me and even in my daughter and a part of me just knows she is here in this gentle breeze and warm autumn sun.