i get to be...

counting the years she never got

Next Tuesday I mark 59 turns around the sun. That is nine amazing years here more than my mother Ellen ever had on this great green earth.

Each year on my birthday, I honor and remember my mom Ellen. See, when you lose a parent, your birthday is no longer simply a milestone, a day of marking a move forward, all candles and balloons--it rolls back to the day you were born. Your birth, day. The very day my mom brought me into this whole, wide, magical world.

On this 59th anniversary of that very day I remember her because she only had 50 in her short but lyrical lifetime.  Not only for her fierce independence, her beauty and grace, her wit and brilliant way with words--even if peppered with a few truck driver tinged f-bombs--mostly for her motherly magic and the way she raised two girls she was so proud of she would bore strangers with escapades from the minutiae of our accomplishments big and small...  She told us too. Never forgetting to say it out loud.  

always looking up to her

Making her proud meant reaching the highest bar, grabbing the brass ring, doing your best and eating a salad with dinner ever night. She was a tough crowd and critic. And JuJu candy her super power pill, never black or green though.

She was the most fantastic audience to your life that you could ever imagine. Front and center with standing ovations

She loved with warm hugs and kisses and conviction. She was a doer who stayed out the extra hour at the beach to get in last licks of the sun, squeeze in another round of scrabble, or rush to the mall after work to get you the perfect party outfit, closed down Carvel grabbing the last cone with sprinkles on any given week night for no special occasion. She let you take off a day of school to venture into Manhattan for a Broadway show. “The School of Mom” she called it.

She was a mighty 5 foot 2, but she lived so large!  I can hear her laugh and battle cry in my efforts to emulate her. The life lessons, her charitable ways and most of all her motherhood is what I try and honor daily. I have tried to live moments she will never,  to their fullest. To raise two granddaughters she has never known in a way that would make her smile. To marry (and remarry) with her power of love and honor. And to be the best big sister and Aunt I know how.

I hope we can all live on a little in her memory and the memory of the day she brought me here. Here is to living every one she didn't have on this planet and never taking it for granted.

Happy Birth Day Mom.  Here is to next Tuesday.

How will you celebrate in her honor? A paid subscription perhaps? Consider an upgrade. This helps someone with a scholarship to my grief support circle.

my sweet friend jen vallez

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