As I mentioned at the time, I got a lot of wonderful remembrances and condolences regarding my mother’s death in February. And things are usually better now. But the first birthday after her death somehow has a special poignancy. I’m NOT calling her or sending her a card or struggling over the fact that buying stuff for her became increasingly difficult, because she said she wanted for nothing.
This is something one of my SBDC colleagues sent back in February:
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet”
One of the things my mom would sing to us on our birthdays and other special occasions was If I Knew You Were Comin’ I’d Have Baked a Cake. Unlike my father, my mom didn’t sing around the house all that often. Here’s the Eileen Barton version of the song.