Celebrating Life and Not Death

(A tigerlily from my dad's garden. One of my mom's favorite flowers).

Today is the 10th Anniversary of my mom's death. It is amazing how it sort of just snuck up on me this year. Previous years, it's been this feeling of heaviness and depression that hits me in September and doesn't leave me until November. It honestly feels good to be past that. It's not like I don't get sad or have days where I just feel out of it, but those days seem to be fewer and far between. I have comes to terms with my mom dying. I am not bitter nor do I feel robbed of my mom. I do miss my mom everyday, but I am more at peace with what happened. It's one of those things that have made me a much stronger person. I am a lot tougher than I used to be. I try very hard not to sweat the small stuff.

I am sort of sad that my mom never got a chance to know me as a real adult. I was 19 when she died and just a quasi-adult- still sort of a teenager, but kind of an adult. I know she would've been very proud at the person that I've become. She was always proud of me no matter what I did.

She was encouraging of my crazy ideas, like the time my best friend Jenny and I wanted to turn our neighborhood into a Disney theme park. That was ok, but she drew the line when we tried to sell tickets to the neighbors. She never made fun of these schemes and she always supported my creativity. She loved to have fun and was always let me be silly. I always feel very fortunate that I was able to have 19 years with my mom. I rarely took her for granted and we always got along well. There were a couple of the typical totally teen moments. My favorite was when I didn't want to wear my boots to school. I was 12 and it was so totally uncool to be seen wearing boots in the snow! Ohmygod! If someone saw me, I would've died. I thought I was being sneaky and smart by taking my boots off at the bus stop, but my mom caught me. The bus stop was in front of our house. Duh. After that time, I learned to just take the boots off on the bus, where my mom couldn't see me. But, every kid has those moments with their mom.

Ten years later, I am glad that I can reflect back on silly things like the boots not with sadness but more of nostalgia and humor. I can celebrate my mom's life and not focus on her death.