at 4:30 yesterday afternoon, after a 6 year battle,
the last 14 months of which were hard fought,
my mother finally allowed herself the rest she so deserved and left us.
My mother was a force of nature. For many years, this meant that we could not get along.
But the day she became a grand-mother, so far away in China, we put all our differences aside,
and we found our common ground. All the kids things I know about being a mother, I learned
them from her. Some of the things I do I also do because she didn't to them. But I appreciate
that, because all she ever cared about was that we be happy.
From her, I get many of the traits that make me who I am:
my creativity, my sense of style, my need to constantly over-do everything,
my stick-to-ivness and ability to achieve whatever I set my mind to.
That's exactely how she was.
She didn't see me turn 40. I know that was what kept her going, because she was 34 when her own mother died, and that was one of her regrets, that my grand-mother didn't see her turn 40.
Somehow, I'm going to think of something special in the next few months, to make
her really proud.
