Lessons from my Mother - the intro...

My mother passed away 10 years ago. At the time, I thought I would never get over her death, and truth be told I am still not over it. I still havent come to terms with the fact that my mother, my dearest Mummy, is no more. 10 years later, I am still mourning her loss, still comprehending what it means to be a motherless child. I miss her love and her unwavering belief in my abilities. I miss her smile, I miss her cooking, I miss gisting with her, I even miss fighting with her!

I miss her voice: when I was away in college she would call me on the phone and when I heard her voice on the other end, I would exclaim in an exagerrated sing-song tone, "My Mummy!!!" and she would respond in exactly the same tone, "My daughter!!!!" Then we would both burst into laughter. She would ask me how I was doing and I would gist her about whatever was going on in my life at the time. She had an uncanny way of knowing when I was distressed or sad or unhappy and she always knew just what to say to make me feel better. My Mummy understood me, she knew me perhaps even more than I knew myself. She just "got" me. I guess that's why she was my Mummy. I miss having her in my corner. I miss the security of knowing that no matter how bad things got out in the big, bad world, my Mummy would always have my back. Her love was a safe haven for me, and in many ways I have been more or less adrift since she passed on. I find myself looking for her love in all the wrong places - only now am I starting to realize that there is no love like that of a mother...

Still, 10 years later I can say that I have survived what I thought was unsurvivable. I am still here, still standing, still thriving. I am getting stronger with every passing day. It has not been easy but God has been faithful and He has never let me go. I thank Him for His faithfullness, and for showing me that there is a Love even higher than that of a mother. It is because of God's unyielding love that I am still alive today. And it is because of the solid foundation that my Mother laid that I havent gone astray. I have been thinking about this a lot lately and it's becoming clearer to me that I am truly my mother's daughter. My values, my sense of self, my idea of family, my love for God are all derived from her.

In the next couple of posts, I will share what I think are the 10 most valuable lessons my Mother taught me. She didnt necessarily sit me down and say, "Kemikal, hear ye the 10 most valuable lessons of your life......"; she simply imparted wisdom to me every day of my life just by being herself. She taught me sound life lessons, which are still yielding value to this day. In fact, the older I get, the more I appreciate all that my Mother taught me and all that she represented.

What better way to keep her memory alive than to share what I learned from her. To wit...

Next post: Lessons from my Mother - Part 1