Being able to write about it affirmed something I’ve been feeling this spring, that perhaps I am moving out of my mourning period, perhaps I am ready to be centred in my own life once more, not pulled into the wake of hers.
My mom was a formidable combination of fierce and gentle. She offered safe space and non-judgmental listening to many and they loved her for it. She was rebellious and whip-smart. Not a day in her life could she be told what to do. She was a lifelong learner and loved math, music and sacred geometry. She was an unfulfilled musician and she felt that pain right until the end.
She liked to live at the front edge of the future, working with computers when they took up several rooms and required punched paper instruction cards, making sure we had one at home as soon as such a thing was possible.
She loved all of her children completely and unconditionally, even when we would tussle because, well, we’re strong-minded too. What she taught me most of all was to be understanding and kind, to be curious about the world and engaged in it and, unwittingly perhaps, she taught me to be my own woman, gentle and fierce, following my own path every day of my life.