Yesterday I:
- Woke up next to a beautiful woman who I love very much.
- Got to work a few minutes late… but stayed longer than I should have.
- Stopped by REI to look at portable camp chairs and noticed an out-of-season black and yellow butterfly flittering outside the store.
- Cleaned up the mess the trash pandas made of my garbage can before the garbage truck came.
- Took Winston for a short walk and fed him and Kione.
- Installed a monitor on an articulating arm.
- Watched YouTube videos from my favorite overlander and woodworker.
- Intended to write last night, but instead played some video games when the muse deserted me.
- Talked to Fern on her way home.
- Got to bed at a reasonable time and fell asleep with my cat and dog.
I didn’t realize that yesterday, February 19, was the five year anniversary of my mom’s death until this morning when I saw my brother, Jack, sent a picture of the stunning sunset he enjoyed in Maui, explaining it had rained all day but mom brought that to a close in order to present them with the gorgeous fiery explosion of the setting sun through fractured clouds above the darkening sea.
I believe that, too.
And I don’t feel bad about not thinking about that day five years ago when she died – and I don’t think she’d want it differently. There was only one thing positive on that day and that was that my whole family stood together and we were all able to be present when the time came for my mom to slip off into the world beyond. We bore witness and showered her with all the love she had given us for so many years. When I look back on that day, that’s the sun bursting through the stormy clouds.
But I didn’t reflect on that day yesterday. I though of my mom, though. I still do everyday in ways big and small. Five years hence, and the grief waves have calmed, though the rogue wave still comes out of nowhere to just swamp me…
Every time the first day of October comes around I do inevitably remember that day in 1991 when I got the news that my dad had died. But I chalk that up to that moment indelibly seared into the emotionally developing mind of a seventeen year old, but even more I attribute that to the fact that it was the first day of the month and really super memorable. February 19th? You’d be hard pressed to randomly pick arbitrary day out of the year.
Only it’s not arbitrary any more, is it? Well, if I imagine my mom visited us yesterday to check in on us all I don’t think she’d be upset that I spent yesterday doing ordinary things, that I thought of her but didn’t recall that stormy day five years ago. I imagine she did check in on all of us in turn, and seeing things were normal, proceeded across the storm-tossed Pacific to Jack and Jenny and their families visiting Hawaii where she wouldn’t abide the weather and decided to put on a hell of a show and Jack snapped some stunning pictures of the event, shared them with all of us, and made me at peace with remembering that I didn’t dwell on the storm that had passed. No, it’s all about the colors.
