Things I want to remember!

Forgive my sentimentality today. My emotions are still so raw, even after six years. Because I have a lot of words, but too much emotion to fully express how I feel today, I want to just share a few things I never want to forget about my mom.

Things I will never forget:

1. The way we could laugh for hours on end. By the time we stopped laughing, we had forgotten what we started laughing about to begin with.

2. The day I came home from school and flipped my mom off, thinking it was the coolest thing in the world. My mom didn't get mad, she just left my room quietly and never mentioned it to me again. I didn't get a lecture.

3. She flew by herself, despite her serious dislike for flying, to be with me when I had my first child! On her way home she got stuck in the Chicago airport because the weather had delayed the flight from Michigan.

4. We were a dynamic duo at Skipbo and Phase 10. We could cheat like no other but we didn't cheat to win. We found ourselves in fits of giggles when we cheated.

5. She always said she enjoyed hearing me practice both the piano and flute although I knew most of the time I sounded terrible.

6. She made the most of bad situations. I made my brother mad one day and he kicked a hole in the wall. She turned that hole into a bigger hole that eventually became a closet.

7. She always knew when I had a bad day.

8. She made the best cinnamon rolls and the best snickerdoodle cookies.

This list can go on and on, but I fear the length of this post if I do. It has been said that time will erase all pain, but I seem to feel it as acutely now as I did six years ago. There is a void, replete with questions that will not have answers until we are reunited someday. So I must continue to plod along, hoping that I don't defile her name. I must keep her memory alive and give my children the opportunity to know the woman who helped shape my life!