Mother's Day has come and gone. I wanted to write a post yesterday but could not get myself to do so. Instead, I spent the beautiful Sunday doing some usual Sunday morning things, such as making coffee, reading the NYTimes, tidying up the home a bit. Then, as the morning sun heated up, I tackled the backyard - digging up my ever expanding collection of hostas, splitting them up, relocating some of them, and trying to give away a lot of them. I was successful in all these efforts. I chatted with my neighbors whose mothers had come to visit. Later, in between random television viewing, I balanced my checkbook, surfed the internet, cleaned inside the home a bit more, ate a late lunch, and eventually heated up a salmon burger on the grill. H-Dub came back from a day with her family and we went for a nice bike ride to Crema Cafe for sorbet (yum). Riding through the swarm of gnats around the lake, we enjoyed the serene water of Lake Harriet and felt refreshed. It was a relaxing day of doing mostly nothing.
Then again, perhaps it was a day of reflecting and appreciating.
Throughout the day, I thought of my mother. I miss her awfully still and yet I have come to peace with her absence. I feel her presence in small ways - when I cook Korean food, when I am organizing and cleaning, when I am bargain shopping, when I am talking with my dad on the telephone, when I am worrying about the family from afar, when I stop to say a prayer, when I am talking to friends about childhood. Our memories are shaped by the stories told to us, stories we have told to others, and invoked by the smells, sounds, sights, and actions of everyday life. So, in doing the little things around the home yesterday, I was thinking of my mother most of the time.
Most days, these memories bring about a warm melancholy that soothes the soul. It's not a sadness at not having but a touching emotion of gratitude and missing. The loss of a loved one, once the grief has subsided and the healing of life resumes, brings a special awareness to what we do have in life. I guess, you could say, it is the last gift my mother gave me before dying.
Happy Mother's Day, mom.
Posted by richlee at May 14, 2007 10:11 AMThe only possession I have of Halmuni's is this small photo album she kept by her bedside the last decade or so. In it, there's a picture of you mom laughing with Halmuni, making Halmuni smile like no other person could. I was thinking about your mom yesterday night as I remembered dear Halmuni. I miss her, too.
Posted by: Sarah at May 14, 2007 06:52 PMrich, this really captures some of the feelings about losing a loved one. i think those everday reminders are so special. btw--i spent the day cleaning and eating salmon burgers. thanks for this blog.
stine