Sending a hug up through the opening.

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.” ~Eskimo Proverb

It is one year ago today that we lost my mom.  It has been a rough year.  All the "firsts"...my first birthday without her baking my cake (yeah I was spoiled and still got that), her first missed birthday, the first Thanksgiving, first Christmas, first garden without any input or help from her. 

You would think it was the big holidays and things that were the worst to deal with but it wasn't.  It was the everyday things...Not going to have coffee with her in the morning and watching the grass fill in the pathway between our homes OR seeing that a store that we had shopped at and had been around for years with a closing sign and thinking I had to tell her only to remember I didn't have to do that anymore OR baseball season starting and eventhough I am a Yankee's fan, not printing out the Mets schedule so she could watch every game.

The grandkids all stopped after school every day and they have missed running to her house to get what ever she baked to celebrate their first day back to school.  They would eat and talk at the same time telling her about their teachers, schedules and getting lost stories OR bringing home the report card/candy order form for her to see OR her waving to them from the audience at their band/chorus concerts/sports. 

I was sitting in the car the other day and watched an older woman walk up a flight of steps, both feet on every step.  I remembered what a defining moment it was when my own mom started to do that.  I started crying now because she would not have approved of crying then.  Knowing she had cancer and seeing it's effects on such a simple act was totally different.  Then I had to laugh because that woman was just as stubborn as my mom and would not walk the ramp, use a wheelchair or take the elevator.

She was not a huggy kissy mom but she showed you in a thousand other ways.  She never had much, lived most of her life in the trailer my dad and her bought in 1965.  She never went to college, never had a job that paid $10 an hour, only ever owned one new car and never traveled far.  She never sought the spotlight but was a constant behind the scenes helping out with whatever needed to be done. For such an unassuming person she left a huge whole in our lives.