A Birthday Remembrance and Update

Today would be Mom's 76th birthday.

She's been gone eight months today.

While the constant crying and ever-present hurt over her loss have lessened, they rear their ugly heads for days at a time when something like this comes up. Sis and I have been in tears for the past week, and somehow the hurt seems fresh all over again.

We finally finished going through everything in the house and had the sale of the remaining belongings in June. Shortly after that we put the house up for sale and it sold within a week. Those weeks were among the hardest I've ever had to go through in my life.

We did it just as she wanted us to. A good part went to charity. The grandchildren got their share of the inheritance as well. We were fair with each other. There was no fighting - no disharmony in the whole process. The one thing she asked is that we not fight when the time came, and we did her proud.

I hope she knows, somehow.

The new owners won't close on the house until September 1st, so Sis and I continue to meet over there weekly for coffee. We still have a very few things to take home and do before we hand it over forever and it becomes "home" to someone else. We want to get some starts from the plants there, dig up a few bulbs, harvest the tomatoes from the one plant that came up on its own in the garden. We've both decided we will probably never drive past the house again after it's sold. It's too painful to think of someone else living there.

There are two pieces of German chocolate cake in the freezer at the house. Mom made them over a year ago, long before the stroke, and tucked them away to enjoy at a later date. It's the same German chocolate cake she made for me every year for my birthday.

Tonight Sis and I will sit down together at the house and have a bite of that cake to remember Mom on her birthday.

I think she'd like it that way.