I have tried to stay busy today.  I have avoided looking back on pictures too painful to recall, particularly at the end when she was dying.  I lament her passing every day — so kind, so gentle, so loving, and so sweet:  my mother.  Today is her birthday.  If it were not for her life, I would not have life.  And if it were not for my life, my precious daughter would not have life.  I thought about choosing a picture of my mother but there are so many … her youth, as a mother to me, and when she got older.  So I decided to choose instead a picture of her namesake.  She is the very spitting image of her; particularly in this picture with her hair so red from the sun.  When I look at my child; I see her.  And so instead of crying incessantly today I have tried to celebrate the woman I loved most in this world.  I even bathed with her favorite soap of white flowers to bring back her scent.  She is with me every time I hear Claire de Lune, which she played effortlessly on our piano.  She is with me every time I see a cardinal, which was her favorite bird.  She is with me when I make her meatloaf for my family.  She always had a quiet, brilliant radiance of which she was not even aware that emanated from her.  Her skin was so soft and naturally unwrinkled by the hands of time.  But I can feel my daughter’s soft cheek and kiss the same full lips my mother had.  She is with me as I read to my only child; just as she once read to hers.  And she is with me when I think of her favorite scripture:

Psalm 27:1

The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

My mother is always with me and I have the blessed assurance I will be with her again one day.  Until that day I will make sure she is with her namesake as well.  Her gentleness, grace, beauty, and kindness live on.  And I am so grateful to God for that.