mother – Terri LaBonte- Reinventing Myself in Retirement

Encore Presentation- A Beam Of Love

I miss my mother every single day. Lately, she has been even more in my mind than usual. A few months ago, a dear friend passed away. This friend was there to provide some “pinch hit” mothering when my own mother died. As my friend wrestled with end stage Parkinson’s Disease, it felt like my beloved mother was slipping away from me again. My mother’s birthday was a couple of weeks ago. Tomorrow, she will have been dead for four years. My grieving for my mother is amplified. It is eating away at my spirit more viciously than usual. On the other hand, even after all this time, the light of her joy, laughter, and love is the coziest comfort imaginable.

Because of that succor, I thought I would re-publish a blog piece I posted soon after her death. Those of you who knew my mom will understand and enjoy remembering her this way. For those of you who didn’t know my mom, perhaps this re-publication will remind you that, in the worst of times, there can always be joy and love.

A Beam Of Love

In the wee hours of the morning on September 2, my mother found her way out of this life. After over a year of struggling on her path towards the next life, she fell asleep. When she awoke, I am sure she found herself in God’s dwelling place instead of in the nursing home.

All my mother’s life, she lived joyously and richly. She squeezed every drop of enjoyment and meaning out of every day. She was almost always happy. It wasn’t that her life was always wonderful or exciting or fun. It wasn’t even that she had a particularly exotic or interesting life. Most people would say that her life was pretty conventional. She was a daughter and a sister and an aunt and a wife and a career woman and a mother and a friend. What made her so special was not so much what her life was, but how she lived it.

My mother had a gift for satisfaction. She collected fulfillment and meaning in her every action, even the most mundane experiences. When we were out driving somewhere and got off course, she’d often say, “I never get lost; I just have adventures.” I think that pretty much summed up how she approached life, way beyond just how she approached a road trip. Wherever she was going in life and whatever she did, she was determined to find happiness and pleasure in the process.

She was the kind of person who attracted other people. She was an interesting and interested person. She was curious about all kinds of things and embraced opportunities to learn. She relished good, meaty conversations. She was an excellent listener. She knew how to make people feel safe. She heard what you said and what you didn’t say. She heard what was underneath your words. I don’t believe there was ever anyone who knew her who did not love her. She constantly sowed love and harvested relationships as she rollicked through her day-to-day existence. She valued those relationships and nurtured them. Even in the nursing home in her very compromised state, she radiated a kindness and joy that attracted people.

On the other hand, she followed her own heart in living her own life. She did what she believed was right and followed the paths that brought her happiness. She used to say that she liked herself and she liked her own company. She had a busy mind that was always tooling away happily, creating thought and considering possibilities. I used to say she was her own occupational therapist because she could figure out alternate ways to do almost everything when her mobility started to desert her. She owned a home computer before most people did and, even in her eighties, she embraced new technology that added interest to her life.

She had courage of conviction. She walked her life with God as her guide. She held firm in her convictions and relied on her relationship with God to support her in her journey. She believed in miracles and in prayer.

She loved God. She loved life. She loved other people. She loved herself. In short, she was a joyful beam of love, illuminating and warming everyone with whom she came in contact.

Now this beam of love has faded into the next life, leaving this life darker and colder and considerably less sparkling. The thought of going on with my journey without her physically by my side seems unconscionable. Considering all the memories we shared, all the things she taught me, and all the gifts she gave me, it is inaccurate to say I will ever be traveling through this life without her. All that she was is embedded in me and will be with me forever. I want to honor all she was and all that made her beam by carrying on her legacy of loving, joyful living.

It seems that now I will have to grow towards the joy on my own, without her walking in tandem with me. I don’t know yet how I am going to do that. It helps to know that she has found the greatest Joy of all.

Madonna flowers at church on 8/22/21- would have been Mom’s 90th birthday.

Spooning

My brother has long maintained that my mother and I are basically the same person. I am not sure how the metaphysics of that assertion work exactly, but he is adamant on the point.

As much as I loved my mother and admire her many excellent qualities, I’m not sure I want to be the same person she was. For one thing, it seems very disrespectful of who she was as a person to suggest that anyone else (myself included) could be her as effectively as she did. Secondly, it seems a rather lazy approach to life to just duplicate someone else’s protoplasm. Thirdly, I do believe that God made us each uniquely and we are fitted for a specific purpose. I’d like to think that I have something to offer the world independent from being a pale carbon copy of my mother. Basically, the world was lucky enough to have one of my mother. She was so special that no one could ever replace her. The world doesn’t need me to be a replica of my mother any more than diamonds need cubic zirconia. The world might need me to be cubic zirconia, though. You never can tell.

I can think of a few simple differences between me and my mother right off the bat. My mother never met a stranger- only friends she hadn’t met yet. She loved meeting new people and reveled in conversation. I live in a world of strangers. My ability to communicate, even with people to whom I am close, can dry up like a riverbed in Southern California. My mother could do arithmetic in her head. I can’t be sure of a reasonable amount to tip without a calculator, pencil, and paper. I got excited when I learned that doubling the tax in California gives you a good approximate tip amount. The only problem was, once I determined the tip amount, I then had to mentally add it to the bill in order to know how much money to leave. My mother would have been able to take the check, compute 15%, add the 15% amount to the total, pull out enough cash to pay, and know exactly how much change she had coming back. My mother did not eat pizza. I just can’t fathom how someone could live over 85 years on this planet and never eat pizza.

You can see that we are not, in fact, the same person. Still, I understand my brother’s point. There have been many times, especially since my mother died, when I have caught myself in an expression or gesture that reminds me so much of something my mother would have done. When my mind is playing tricks on me, I find myself wondering if I got a particular mannerism from her or if she got it from me. It is very confusing. It seems likely that I somehow picked up traits from her by osmosis, just from having been around her so much. What I find really weird is that I sometimes recognize myself doing a mannerism that she did when I never even realized she had the mannerism while she was alive. For instance, there is a particular face I make when I am stumped by a question. I never particularly noticed that face when my mother was alive, but, now, I clearly remember her making that face.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing, do you think, that I seem to be turning into my mother? My brother would argue that it isn’t a case of me “turning into” my mother, but that I always was my mother. That whole notion contorts my brain into a very uncomfortable position. It is sort of like looking at the little girl on the Morton salt container and seeing her picture on the Morton salt container she is holding, where that tinier little girl is holding a still tinier Morton salt container… etc., etc., etc. Help me!

The thing is, I do want to be a unique person, but I also love that I may be growing some of my mother’s wonderful traits within myself. Maybe there is no way to know if it is good or bad that I am turning into my mother. And maybe it doesn’t really matter because it is happening, whether I want it to or not. Let me explain. I realized something the other day which firmly convinced me that both nature and nurture are far stronger than I ever understood.

We used to laugh at my mother and her novel approach to flatware. I remember a day when I brought my mother a dish of ice cream and a spoon from the kitchen. She looked at the spoon and pointed out that it was okay, but that I had not brought her “favorite” spoon. I looked at her as if she had suddenly grown another head and asked how she could tell the difference between the spoons. The teaspoons all looked alike to me. As it turned out, she had a few spoons from a mismatched set of flatware she bought at a thrift store that were much smaller in size. Those were her “favorite” spoons because she said they fit in her mouth better. From that day on, I tried to remember to fetch the “favorite” spoon when serving her something that required a rounded utensil.

The other morning, I realized I was rooting through the silverware drawer looking for my favorite spoon with which to eat my cereal. In my case, it is actually the sugar spoon that came with my flatware set. It is a better fit for the shape of my mouth than the teaspoons. I wasn’t laughing.

Do you think you have inherited any traits or tendencies from a parent? How do they manifest? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a natural, nurturing day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

I Miss My Momma

My mother was born on August 22, 1931. She was my beautiful, love-illuminating mother for almost 58 years until her death last year. She spent her life loving and laughing and playing and working and bringing joy to everyone who knew her. As many of you know, she spent the last year of her life stumbling around in the rubble of her collapsing brain before she found her way home to our great God.

The time I spent walking with my mother towards the end of her life was the most difficult time of my life. When she died, I was sad to my essence. Every cell in my body mourned her. I was also relieved that she had finally escaped that half-world where everything she knew was disintegrating around her.

When she died, I had to look for a new way to live. Learning how to grow towards my joy after keeping vigil at the edge of her darkness for over a year has been difficult. For the most part, I’ve done pretty well. I think that is largely due to the huge amount of anticipatory grief I processed during my mother’s illness. Still, there is so much I am missing in this world without my mother.

The hardest part of mourning for me has been my fear that I would never remember my happy times with my mother when she was as she was in what I refer to as her “real life.” Yes, my brain could remember those warm, loving, joyful, funny memories. I could even point towards times during her illness that brought me deep peace, love, and happiness. The scary part was that it was only my brain that could remember. My heart couldn’t seem to connect with those times anymore. I could tell those memories to someone else, but it always felt like I was talking about something I read or about someone else’s memories. I couldn’t feel those happy moments anymore. Before my mother’s illness, I could deftly enter my brain’s library and find a richly beautifully shelved memory. I could re-live that moment and actually feel all the same feelings again. After my mom’s stroke, all the happy memories seemed to be cloaked with the heavy, uncomfortable, dark sadness. I couldn’t struggle my way out from under that cloak and refeel the happiness.

The hospice grief counselor assured me that the time would come when I would be able to connect with those jewels of joy again. I was skeptical, but it turns out she was correct. It happened for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I was in my car backing out of the garage. Max was waving good-bye to me. He made some funny, exaggerated motions with his hands and, immediately, I was brought back to a time when I was a teenager. My mother came into my bedroom to wake me. She began singing:

The Lord told Noah to build him an ark-y, ark-y.

He made it of hickory barky, barky… children of the Lord.

So, rise and shine and give God your glory, glory.

Rise and shine and give God your glory, glory.

Rise and shine and give God your glory, glory. Children of the Lord!”

She sang at the top of her lungs and her performance came complete with jazz hands, which is why Max’s motion triggered the memory. I physically felt my mood soar. I began to giggle. I know my whole face beamed.

That wasn’t my last “re-feeling” moment. They are coming back to me spontaneously, like beautiful little surprises. I think my mother is sending them from Heaven.

I was thinking about how much I enjoyed teaching leadership classes when I was working. I remembered the year I won my employer’s highest award for training. I was going to Washington DC to accept the award and participate in a videoconference about teaching techniques. I asked my mother if she wanted to go, even though I knew she probably wasn’t physically up to the trip. She asked if all the other award winners would have guests with them because she “would crawl there on her knees before she would let me be the only one there alone.” She had my back, every day in every way.

I saw something the other day that mentioned how many weekends were left before Christmas and remembered my mother’s intense adoration of all things holiday. I could feel her contagious excitement in the pit of my stomach. I was watching “Countdown to Christmas” on QVC the other day and I kept wanting to text her when I saw something cute.

That’s the thing, though. I am thrilled to find these joy jewels coming back to me. I love being able to relive the emotions. I feel love. I feel pride. I feel fulfillment. I feel silliness. I feel nurtured. I feel mothered. On the other hand, just as suddenly as these waves of warm, joyful, happy feelings crest, they crash down on the reality that there will be no new moments like those to remember.

I am happy that my mother is living a new, joyful, eternal life in Heaven. I am happy that she is waiting there to share it with me when my turn comes. I am also happy that my heart is now receiving glimpses of all the good she lavished on me in our life together. I know she is no longer with me in my world, but she will always be with me in my life.

Yes, these heart memories and the wistfulness that follows them remind me that I have a hole in my heart that will always be empty. Still, I’d rather feel that hole in my heart than not feel my heart at all.

What are some of your favorite memories of a lost loved one? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a joyful day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

A Beam Of Love

She was the kind of person who attracted other people. She was an interesting and interested person. She was curious about all kinds of things and embraced opportunities to learn. She relished good, meaty conversations. She was an excellent listener. She knew how to make people feel safe. She heard what you said and what you didn’t say. She heard what was underneath your words. I don’t believe there was ever anyone who knew her who did not love her. She constantly sowed love and harvested relationships as she rollicked through her day-to-day existence. She valued those relationships and nurtured them. Even in the nursing home in her very compromised state, she radiated a kindness and joy that attracted people.

She loved God. She loved life. She loved other people. She loved herself. In short, she was a joyful beam of love, illuminating and warming everyone with whom she came in contact.

Thanks to all of you for your support as I have walked this difficult path with my mother. Thanks, in particular, to my friends Louisa and Odete, who encouraged me to write this tribute to my mom. Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a joyful day!

Terri 🙂

Special programming announcement: I’ll be off the grid next week, but will be back with new content on October 4.