Today would have been my mother’s 67th birthday. It’s been six years since her unexpected passing. I still think about her often- like every time I go to Costco and pass by the meat section. When I went shopping there with my mom, I would always throw several large pieces of steak in the shopping cart only to watch her roll her eyes at me. I just grinned back. She usually followed up by giving me the “Anything else?” look.
Recently, we sadly lost a member of our church through cancer. I’m a friend with her son who also attends our church. Our church as a whole, and my home Bible study in particular, have been in constant contact with the family in order to help them in any way we can through the entire process. It very much reminded me of when I lost my mom. You eventually move on and things get a little easier, but there are certain things that bring you back in that moment, the moment of the realization you will lose the person that cared for you most in this world. It’s not a place I like to revisit. However, there are occasions when there are other people suffering through the same situation, and I can enter in with them and sympathize.
What do you tell a person who just lost a loved one? What can you do? It’s one of the more powerless feelings a human being can feel. You want to say or do something but you don’t exactly know what. The simple answer is that there are no simple answers. It’s perfectly okay if we don’t know exactly what to say. I remember dozens of people coming up to me and telling me if I needed anything to let them know. And people saying, “Sorry for your loss.” I appreciated the support. But what I leaned on the most was the truth that in Christ, death has no victory. As a believer, when we think about the believers that we lose to death, “we grieve but not like those in the world who have no hope.”
I still think about what it would be like if my mom were still around. My in-laws keep telling me Joelle is like me because of her strong will, independence, and down-right disobedience. I sometimes forget my in-laws don’t have my mom here to ask, “What was Junior like as a child?” I can’t tell them either because I don’t remember anything before I was sixteen years old. But here we are, another year has passed, the grieving has waned and joyous memories abound. Moments like today make me reflect on lessons my mom tried to teach me but I was too stubborn to learn them at the time. She never lived long enough to see the man I have become, and realize that many of those lessons did eventually take root, but without her I would’ve never become who I am.
Happy Birthday, Mom.
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