Happy Birthday, Mom

Today would have been my mother’s 82nd birthday. She died 14 years ago, way too soon. And I thought today, as I often have, of things I wish I’d known about her before she died. After her death, I learned the following from the woman I studied piano with from 5th grade through high school. (She and my mom had gotten to be friends, but I didn’t know more than that.) My piano teacher lived miles out of town, and didn’t have a washer, much less a dryer—but she had a toddler, before disposable diapers. So Mom would drive over (we were a couple of miles on the other side of town), pick her up and bring her to the town’s laundromat. I guess that was during the school day. At the funeral, so many people I didn’t know came over to tell me how much they would miss Mom. She had been intensely involved in politics, Farm Bureau and the Solörlag (organization of descendants of immigrants from Solör, in Norway), and had served as the March of Dimes’ county chapter Executive Director. It was clear that she had touched people’s lives in many ways. I wish I had known. I wish she had known. She died horribly from cancer, which I didn’t know she had until ten days before she died. It had metastisized to her bones. Only Dad knew, and it was something they dealt with in the usual way—avoiding it until way too late. That colored everything so that it was hard to remember, let alone think about, the mother I loved. A Lutheran pastor my parents knew from the Solörlag delivered the eulogy at her funeral. He gave my mother back to me, retrieved her from the horrible, dark place of “why didn’t she tell us—tell me.” He recounted how she so loved unexpectedly meeting up with previously unknown relatives (it did happen rather often—at Mt. Rainier she struck up a conversation with another person only to discover the connection). The pastor imagined her in Heaven, joyfully going from one relative to the next, catching up. Yes. And when she laughed, it was with her whole being. Wiping tears from her eyes. At least I had that with her, but the circumstances of her death had obscured my memories of shared glee. I’ll forever be grateful to Pastor Grefsrud for this tremendous gift. Maybe this is something you had to be there to understand, but when I was young, Mom and I had blowing contests. We’d see who could “outblow” the other—in the face. Guess halitosis or spittle wasn’t an issue. She’d fake holding in a huge breath, with the funniest expression on her face, and I’d burst out laughing—and lose the contest. I can’t recall ever winning, but the laughter was payoff for winner and loser alike. And her love of meeting relatives rubbed off on me in at least a small way. After the funeral, a number of us gathered at her sister’s home, and I kept on feeling the impulse to call and tell her all about it. So many people she would have loved to talk to. I still miss you, Mom.