Today is a great day in my family, it is my mom’s birthday, July 30, 1913, what a great day. She would live through so many things, she would go through hard times, good times and amazing times.
She would grow up and marry a boy she had been in love with since she was five years old. She would be parted from said boy for 10 years while he was in heaven waiting for her.
She didn’t have to be my mom she chose to, on this day I would like to share with you one of the important lessons she taught me.
When the love of her life left this earthy plane for heaven she grieved horribly. She missed him, she missed his laughter, she missed his very presence.
I lived here in Texas, while she lived in Owasso, I would call her once a week and we wrote letters. When I would call her our conversations would naturally turn to dad. We would share remembrances, funny stories and yes some when he was stubborn. Those made us laugh the most, at the end of one of our phone calls she told me something that made me incredibly sad.
She very quietly said “you’re the only one that talks about him with me”. I said what do you mean, she went on to say everyone thought it would make her sad to talk about him, the love of her life.
But she wanted to talk about him, she wanted to laugh at stories, she wanted to tell people about him, the incredible man God gave her to be her very own. He was her prince, her knight, her movie star crush all rolled into one. And he chose her to marry, she never quite got over that fact, she never saw herself as the actual catch. My dad got to spend his life with a woman that was beautiful inside and out, God gave him a woman that would work beside him building a life.
What we can take from this, during this time when people are losing loved ones, is to allow them the freedom to talk about the people that are no longer here. Listen to their stories, laugh at the funny ones with them, that is what they need, they want, they crave. They want to know that the people that mattered the most to them are remembered.
She also told me a few weeks after my dad passed she dreamed about him. She was convinced it was more than a dream, you see the last months of my dads life wasn’t pleasant, he wasn’t really there. It was hard, it was brutal and she didn’t feel like she got to say goodbye in a meaningful way.
That night, my dad came to her, he held her and they laughed together, then he said he had to leave. She told him she didn’t want him to go, he told her he would be waiting when it was her turn.
Then the one thing happened that told her this was her gift from God, dad hugged her, and gave her the extra squeeze at the end.
She told me she had never told anyone about that extra squeeze, no one knew but her, dad and God.
She believed to the end of her days that God allowed him to come and say goodbye to her and tell her he would be waiting for her to join him in heaven.
So as a birthday present to my mom, I pass these things on to you.
Happy Birthday Mom, I love you so much, thank you for the life that you
allowed me to have.
Angie World 