The strange planet seems (today) to be one that passes by and sucks me over onto it, in its gravitational pull, as it passes. It passes me now and pulls powerfully.... because my mother died yesterday, and I find my feet in two worlds simultaneously.

It was sudden but not unexpected, and she died peacefully in her sleep, just as she had always said she wanted.

There is nothing left unsaid with her that does not more properly belong in a counseling session, and I am grateful for so much about how, and when, and why she went. We had just spoken on Saturday, and looking back now I see the restlessness she was having, to go.

I know much more about all that than I am at liberty to share, because she enrolled me in some secrets that are not mine to break. But from that vantage point I see so much about her passing that gives me hope and comfort-- not only for myself but for my siblings, among whom there is quite a bit of "brokenness of relationship" (a pastoral care term) in need of healing.

I've been reflecting all day (between bouts of boohoos) that for so many people, we do not really know the Parent until we ourselves are old enough to have just begun to know who the heck s/he actually was as a person-- independent of our childhood view-- and how just as we are old enough to start seeing the REAL person, that person feels released to depart this life for another one.

So all the times Mom and I shared in adult life make me SO GLAD for every risk I took to speak my heart and encourage her to speak hers, and for every phone call that ended with a mutual "Love you," which was quite a feat for a lady raised NOT to say it at all.

Another reflection has been that to really know who they were after they are not accessible to conversation, we can cut through the confusions of semantics and frames-of-reference to look at what they created-- and in that case my mother's main creation was each of "her" children, by her vigorous choice. This creativity extended well into the lives of the grandchildren she co-parented with we "sibling offspring" who she brought into the world personally.

Thus it seems clear to me (prematurely I am sure) that to get to know the real people she built, beyond the fantasy people we created in our fears and hurts, would be to know HER differently than the single view each of us has had of her could allow.

And I suspect that she knew I would be thinking that way, and taking action to encourage that process. I took the first step today in a somewhat challenging phone call with sibs. I had no desire to do it. I felt her pushing me to it, from where she is now. I felt her pointing to what the real priorities are, each time I declined a battle and reached towards peace.


And all day it's been one opportunity after another to see myself acting well and wisely-- as the daughter it turns out she raised me to be. I see the person she told me she was proud of, who I have not been able to see until now when I must see it for myself.

It brings another round of healing tears of gratitude-- she equipped me SO WELL for this time, and she was so darn sneaky I did not see how God was doing that with her in my life!

(Thanks, Mom.)

Finally, it is PERFECTLY who she was that she left us on April Fool's Day, for reasons I could share but prefer not to, and for reasons I cannot share, but it is so PERFECTLY her.

~Susan