Happy Birthday, Mom

September 14, 2015

My mother would be 72 today, had she made it past 35. I've written plenty about her death. I've thought plenty about it, hurt plenty because of it, grieved all my life in the aftermath of it, and eventually I've grown stronger because I finally understand it. Unfortunately like most people who take their own lives, Mom's life is defined by her death. But today, I think remembering her life seems the best birthday gift I can send her way.

Trouble is, I don't know much about her. I was four when she died, and most of the adults in my life were either so stricken by her departure or angered by it--or worried that talking about her would somehow make things worse (huh?)--that she was just a shadow. Undefined and blurry but dimming the light of the life she left behind, it's been hard to figure out who she was.

Her name was Grace Ann.  

I'm told my eyes are her eyes, large and brown. Perhaps they haunted Dad the most, especially in those first years without her. Other than that, my brother is a replica of her older brother, John. It's also my understanding that we might have shared a solid sense of humor, a good laugh, a horrible temper and the frightening possibility that we might swing from one to the next without warning. 

She was a seamstress with God-given talent; and apparently was gifted at whipping the manes of women into complacency and solid 1960s and 70s heights. A beautician by trade, she also worked for the railroad Frisco for a time. 

She made the dress she married Dad in, and her veil caught fire at the reception. By a miracle, her whole head didn't ignite from what was most assuredly a can of Aqua Net that had surrendered its contents to her hairdo on that joyful day.

Dad gave me her wedding ring when I turned 21.  I wear it nearly every day.  Interestingly enough, it fits me perfectly.

Of all the things I don't know, I have been promised again and again that she loved us, even though she left us. And I look at my Grace and Drew and my brother's daughter and think how much she would have loved them. She is part of them...little bits and pieces of them are evidence that she did, in fact, live. They are her legacy.

See, it's not all about her death after all.

So happy birthday, Mom. I know it's better on the other side.  It has to be.  You're there.

The wedding day. Before the candle and the veil met.

Mom's last summer. That's her just to the right of little ol' squinty me.