....five and a half weeks have gone by since I have been on the SBB, the Swiss Railway... never thought that I, the one who hates the whole “flying to a different continent thing” just because it makes me ill.... my body can’t really take it... never thought I’d have been to Europe 3 times in the last 6 months... crazy....
first trip was in December... to Poland for the World Championship of Dance with my daughter... then, an emergency, my mother suddenly in the hospital... my mother ... she was not supposed to ever get sick... but there she was, needing her children around her.... and then this time... it’s my mother’s birthday tomorrow and I promised her when she finally woke up after 10 days in the ICU that I would come back for her birthday...
remembering as a little girl how much I loved to sneak into my Mami’s bed at night, when she was still up... sinking my face into her pillow... the smell of comfort security and love...
her skin so soft... her eyes so loving... taking such good care of me....
how could my feeling dizzy and nauseous for days keep me from bringing her joy on her birthday... a birthday that could so easily have been the first one we just would have been able to remember her... a horrible first... missing her instead of celebrating it with her...
now my mother’s birthday for many years also used to be my anniversary.... last year was the first year for this to be a day of grieving and heartache for me... a nice trip last year to Italy, Capri to be exact... celebrating my mother’s 70’s birthday... no compassion from her for me being saddened beyond belief...
this year... asking me a few times in the last few weeks if I was still sad and I admitted I was... so different from last year... thanking God for that......
so I am choosing tomorrow to focus my attention on the blessings at hand rather than on what I lost... what was torn from my heart.. I will be grateful for a mother who still smells so good and whose skin is so soft, and who, even though I wasn’t so sure if she loved me for a while, still looks at me with these eyes so full of love...
my heart is overflowing with love while at the same time the loss still hurts so much...
and through it all I am held... in a tight embrace, by the One who I love with all my heart and mind and soul, because He first loved me, when I was still an enemy of His... He died for me... so I might not have had much “luck” in love ... but I am assured of the love of the Eternal One, Emmanuel, God with us.. and as much as I am longing for a prince to come and sweep me off my feet... and to live happily ever after... I already have more than I ever need or deserved for that matter....
Praise be to the Lord..... I will be forever grateful.....
