What Would She Say?

What would she say? What would my mother say to me if she was here today? I ponder these things today because today marks the 4th year she has no longer been with us. I have not cried (so far) today but I have thought about her very much. Today started out with us going to Sunday School and Lt. General Hal Moore (Ret.)who lives in Auburn was a guest speaker in our class. He wrote the book, "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young" and he is the man who Mel Gibson portrayed in the movie "We Were Soldiers". There is now a book about his spiritual journey and the majority of the book came about since his wife's death and her name was Julie. I sat there today thinking of my mother, Julie Paul Williams, as I listened to him in our class, talk about his Julie and his journey. The death of someone so important in your life can do lots of things to your spiritual journey.

For me, Mama's death has given me many new avenues in my own personal spiritual journey. The biggest thing that comes to my mind is forgiveness. Having gone through a divorce and many hours of counsel and years of learning how to deal with that kind of pain, I thought I had the forgiveness thing all in tact and sealed with a stamp of approval from God. Well, my mother's life taught me another side of forgiveness and her death brought it all to the surface. She told me a year before her death that she wanted me to forgive a person that had wronged me because she knew what it would do to me IF I did not forgive. She was right. Once I let that person go of oweing me an apology for their wrong, I was free.

Having watched Mama suffer pain the last 20 years of her life and then die with lung cancer, I thought I would do well with the timing of her death. I thought I would not miss certain things about her that I do. The profound impact a mother has on a child can not be put into words. And I can still hear her say while we played cards, "you will miss me when I am gone."

Yes, I do miss her!
In fact there is something to remind me of her everyday of my life. I see certain people that may say something funny like she used to. I will hear a poem and I think of her talented ability to write cute ones. I see a deck of cards and I see her. I walk into my sewing room and I see her, I visit with Daddy and I see her, I see my brothers and sisters and I see her, I see her needlepoint and cross stitched angels all over my house and I see her. I eat fried chicken or a candy bar and I see her. I sit on my porch and look for blue birds and I see her. I watch a game show and I see her. I play with my granddaughters and I see her (and I so wish she could have seen them too) I look at certain recipes and I see her. As I plan my family Luau, I see her. I look in the mirror and I see her! Yep, I see her in me in so many ways. And those are some ways I swore I would not be like her!... but now... some of that is ok.

So what would she say to me if she were here today? She would say "I told you so!" "I told you you would miss me!"