The go-to phrase between my sisters and me has been, “I’m going to try (it).” It being the things that were normal in our family’s “common era,” before our God both injured us and endowed us with a special angel.

Living without Mama is the biggest and most uncomfortable adjustment we’ve ever had to make. It feels like nothing is possible, until you remember you are her seed, and then suddenly, any and everything becomes possible.

And so, I’m going to try and find delight in writing again. Lately, it’s felt wrong to write, as if I’m invading my own privacy and time of grief. Maybe now that I am reconnecting with words, I can stop holding my breath. 

Mama read my blogs. Through these Serenity Sundays, she and I connected and understood that while wisdom came through life experiences, there was something powerful about putting it all into words. She was a writer, too, and an avid reader of spiritual literature. What I generated and shared in WordPress she’d safeguard in pretty journals and on yellow sticky notes. So many graceful applications in the margins of her books. 

She’d often watch me fumbling around at life and would say with a smile, “you remind me so much of myself.” Many times I started to ask her what she meant, but I hesitated to ask, afraid that I’d chip at something that had been broken or that I’d see something I wasn’t supposed to— something that was none of my business. Like everyone who loses a parent unexpectedly, I’m left to cope with the unresolved…

I think a lot. I think about the pending things. The colloquies where I’m now sure I came off self-absorbed and goal-driven, putting her in a position to support and promote me, when she was the real MVP— the real champion! I think about the things that got in the way of seeing her needs. I think of the moments I rushed— the times I came by and kept the car running. It’s like I didn’t savor us enough. Like, at times, I was too quick about things. Mama gassed us up, cheered us on, and made us feel important. But, my goodness. She was most precious! Her significance— greater than any accomplishment I could ever have.

I wake up listening for the birds. I go on walks just to feel the cool wind against my back. I consider the sun and how it sits fervently in the sky. Mama was intentional and divine, so I know she is in our great beyond.

I look at my hands—the color, texture, and placement of veins— and remember hers when they were warm and full of life. The way she’d clap them together when she was happy and satisfied. I cherish those hand claps and two-steps. Mama was a woman who danced to her own beat and jammed to the rhythm of her sweet yesteryears.

She had a love of chocolatey, peanut buttery, nougaty treats. I’d often find them hidden in cabinet corners. Her laughter and wisdom, often punctuated with palm-out witnessing.

I miss her.

I miss the smell I came to know when we were skin-to-skin; the voice I came to know in utero—that I didn’t think to save in my voicemail.

If you physically still have your mother, I beg you to cherish every moment. Stay and sit a while. Fulfill every plan; hear her every word; because foreverness has a caveat, and while God can provide an endless reservoir of peace, losing your mother is losing yourself.

I’ll never be the same.

But she transcends the soil she was committed to. I look for her everyday, and my God, is she there! Her guidance and instructions are ever clear. I can literally find her suspended in the sky, ethereal, beaming bright. Her transcendental love now available to my children’s children and the generations ahead. She lives.

Thank you for giving me life, Mama. Before I was a participant in loss and grief, I had the opportunity to know you intimately. I continue to learn more about you as a woman, and I’m forever grateful and indebted for all that I’ve come to know and love.