June 2, 2010


Nicholas's mother died on June 1st (yesterday) 6 years ago in 2004. We drove 25 hours from Bluffton, SC to Duluth, MN to be with her before she died. That was the first time I met her. She had been in a nursing home for 6 years and it had been a long time since she had been able to speak and she rarely opened her eyes. Her name was Maria Maxim. When we arrived she was near death so I read to her from the Bible and sang to her. The phone just rang. It was Nicholas. He wanted to talk about his mother's death and wondered why he didn't think about her more yesterday. I think that all of us have a tendency to avoid those emotional hotspots and then, if we think about it later, wonder if it is because we really are that busy, don't care enough, or if we are running away from something painful - or maybe a little of all that. I want to make more time to honor the memory of those who have died whether they will ever be aware of it or not. Hope is all we have when it comes to those mysteries of life that we have no certainty or knowledge about. I hope that whatever I do for those who are no longer living is a blessing to them somehow. Adam, my son died on September 8, 2007. He was only 24. I woke up one morning in 2008 with these words that I hope were from him and not just from my imagination: "I'm new. I'm beautiful. I'm changed. I'm safe. I'm happy. I love you Mom." Those words poured into my head so quickly at the moment of consciousness that I believe that I couldn't have made them up but, of course, I can't be completely sure, so I believe it because I hope it's true and I keep the words in front of me every day - I typed them and put them in the window behind my computer screen.

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