the lesson of the shawl

When my mother recently died, my sisters and I had to sort through her things. It wasn't a conscious "ok now it's time to go through Mom's stuff" sort of a decision. There wasn't much to go through.

Years ago mother decided the best way to make it easy on us when the time came was to get rid of as much stuff as she could. She was moving into my sister Vicky's house and was downsizing anyway, so we had a big cleaning out for her, and divided up what meant to us then, sorting and passing stuff to our kids. Mom was happy it was taken care of.

That meant that when she died, all she had left was what was in the room she occupied at Vicky's. So there was no huge task of sorting things out. That had been done and dusted a few years before.

What the task of going through mom's things became for us was a trip down memory lane. Especially her jewelry. Mom didn't have expensive jewelry. She had never believed in spending a lot of money on it. So what she had was a collection of good and not so good costume jewelry. Some of it was so tarnished we couldn't tell what it was. But as we sorted through it, we talked about where the pieces came from, who had given it to her, and what she wore it for, if we could remember.

We laid things out on her single bed, walked away when it became an emotional overload, and then one by one over the week and a half I was there, I noticed we would drift quietly into the room, touch her things, and sort through our own memories. That was how I discovered the shawl.

It was under some things mom had crocheted, and as soon as I saw it I recognized it. It was made by my grandmother many years ago for my mom. Grandma had a special tool called a daisy maker, and she had made the daisies then crocheted them together.

I pulled the shawl from the drawer slowly and wrapped it around my shoulders.  As I looked at myself in the mirror on mom's dresser, it seemed almost as though I was looking at mom. I closed my eyes and could almost feel her presence there with me, and I felt a calmness wrap itself around me like the shawl had.

The truth of life is that no matter what you do or say there is never enough time.  Letting go of the anxiety and fear of my own mortality was the lesson I learned that day.

I miss you Mary, more than I ever thought I would.

...life... ~cat
i am @jonesbabie on twitter

Writing prompt for Friday Reflections:
Tell us about something you have in your home that has been handed down to you. Describe it, take a photo, and tell us the history and meaning of this item.

accepting this

With life in an uproar lately and much going on, I found that I needed some down time...time to think, get my mind in some sort of order and stop the chaos it was becoming.  So I took Friday and Saturday off, and vegetated...spending most of both days turned inward, thinking about things.

It's a refreshing thing for the spirit, and something I do instinctively when I see I am losing my center.  I spent the days thinking backward, and remembering people I loved who are no longer part of my life, but remain in my heart.  This was not time to be thinking about what I needed to be doing, but to think about what brought me to this spot in my life.  The influence of the people I have met, people I have known, and how they have made me a better person.

I think what started me on this path was a piece of paper I found stuck in my box the other day at work, inconspicuous at first.  I thumbed through the mail, tossed it aside to read later, and plunged on into my work day.  That piece of paper lay there for a few days, then one day while I was taking a break and drinking a cup of tea, I rummaged through the papers on my desk, and came across it again.  This time I picked it up and idly began to read it.

As I read the page with my name written on it, the hair stood up on the back of my neck.  It was as though this had been written to me personally, and it hit my gut so hard I sat straight up in my chair.  I reread it again, then again, and was stunned by the simple truths it held.

The person who sent it knows me very well, even better than I realized, and she knew I needed to read this:

Thank you Dolly.

And thank you to all the women and mothers in my life, who have added such dimension and richness that it is hard to convey the value in humble words.

Happy Mother's Day to my mother, and my sisters, my daughters, and my friends.  You are all the lights in my life.

...life is good. ~cath
find me @jonesbabie on Twitter