I Want My Mommy!

You ever have one of those days when you
just aren’t firing on all cylinders?

For the record,
I have no idea what a cylinder is,
but the expression means you need a tune-up.
It means you’re sputtering and stalling out.

Yesterday,
I was walking across the kitchen,
got tangled up in my own feet,
tripped and went sprawling.

Sprawling, I tell you.

Splat!
Smack!
Ouch!

I looked like Wiley Coyote at the bottom of the ravine
in a Road Runner cartoon –
minus the puff of dust.

After I checked to see if I was paralyzed
(I wasn’t)
or if I had any broken bones,
(there were none)
I decided the best course of action was to
sit on the cold tile floor and howl.

I’m sure it was the shock of being upended,
but I carried on like a toddler.

I cried and I cried.
I want my mommy!

 Because moms make everything
better.
Well mostly better.

The day a did my Wiley Coyote imitation
in the kitchen would have been
mom’s 81st birthday.

Twenty years have mitigated the sharp howling pain of her loss
to an occasional dull ache that
comes and goes the way
old joints are affected by humidity.

After all this time, I can go a long while without missing her,
but then,
like a storm blowing in from the North…

I’m engulfed in the
presence of her absence.

Like when I need advice for
parenting or
grammar or
where to buy a good purse or
what to put on my resume or
how to get over a broken heart …

Like when there’s an awkward fall.

Is your mama still around?
I miss mine today. 

My mom didn’t know everything.
Turns out she didn’t know the most important thing.

She was so smart
she didn’t think she needed God.
She could manage everything herself.

Then she got sick.
Really sick.
Deathly sick.

None of the world’s vast
knowledge or education could save her.

I shared Jesus with her on her death bed.
She saw the Light.
She found eternal peace.

I am happy,
even relieved,
for where she is now,
but the very presence of her absence
is a constant reminder of how much I miss my mom.

Now that she’s gone,
God has filled in the missing places of her
comforting touch,
wise advice and
tender care
with sisters in Christ.
Friends I can call anytime and tell anything.

Who do you go to when you’re off kilter
or banged up?

It’s my deepest prayer for you that
if your mama isn’t that person for you, for whatever reason,
God will put a girlfriend in your life who will
comfort you in your deep sorrow,
sooth you in your craziest snits,
call you out on your sneaky stuff,
and celebrate your victories with
confetti wands and triumphant cheers.

Scripture Refresher:
Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor.
For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion.
But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.
Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone?
Ecclesiastes 4:9-11 NIV