April 10th. Mom's birthday. And I have the day off, a whole day with nothing to do but stare down my sorrow.
Except...I'm not that sad.
Somehow, I don't really miss Mom anymore. She's receded into the past, along with my Johnny West action figure and old issues of TV Guide, with all the cats I had growing up and my beloved dog Elinore, with comic books and movies I've long since forgotten, with my dad and my oldest brother, with things and people who were here, who mattered more than anything in the whole world...and then were gone.
In other words, Mom is something glimpsed occasionally, remembered fondly for a second before moving on. A comforting but non-corporeal presence, like the glowing spectral figures of Yoda, Obi-Wan and Annakin smiling to Luke at the end of Return Of The Jedi.
Yes, yes, I know I just made a geeky Star Wars reference, but it's okay, because if there's anything I learned from Mom, it's the importance of being myself, and that the things I love and care about matter, if only to me. My life, like everyone's, is a work in progress, but wherever I'm at, I know Mom first pointed the way.
I may not weep every day in her absence as I once did, she may only float into conscious thought from time to time. But when she does, I always take a moment to remember her, and in those moments, she lives.
