Sunday, May 11, 2014

Day 16 of 30: Thinking of Mom

This is the 16th day of a 30-day blogging challenge. My comics count toward the daily blogging requirement, but I'm trying to write every day anyway.

The day is almost over, but Happy Mothers Day. At least, I hope it was happy. I spent it with my in-laws and my little nephew (and two fully-grown nephews, as well as my kids). I just want to talk about Moms: no math, no probability, no graphing, nothing.

In total, there were five Moms there. They had a good day. The cooking had been divided up among all the men, for a change. (My brother-in-law is now in charge of pulled pork forever. Good thing he enjoyed making it!)

For my regular readers, you know that it hasn't been the greatest of years for me and my family (and my extended family). I've lost six people since last August. Of those, five were Moms. For once, I was happy for social media because I followed how everyone else was doing. Some seemed to be doing better than me, and they had it rougher than I do.

I lost my Mom, my niece, my aunt and two cousins. Follow the family tree and you'll realize that I have a sibling who lost her mother and her daughter. One cousin passed away not long after her daughter became a first-time mother (and that little boy is credited with my cousin's survival until then), and my other cousin's daughter lost both her mother and grandmother. There are sad feelings all around.

But looking online, I see the notes to their mothers. I see the old pictures and fairly recent ones. There are poems and sayings and feelings. They're sad, but they're not miserable. They aren't in a funk, so why should I be. She's not forgotten (as today's comic will attest to).

I read a lot of remembrances online. Many of my "friends", both real-life and online-only, have lost parents, some when they were teens or younger. They're reminded every year. But they're happy memories, even if they aren't happy.

This "rough patch" the family went through is over, God willing. And we'll move on. Mom would've wanted us to.

And she also would've wanted us to post a picture of her when she was young and vibrant and dancing. But don't mention the year unless you want to be haunted.

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