My mother taught me, what I think, is the most important
thing I could have learned in my life.
She taught me how to love.
My mother had many situations in her life that could have caused her to
be an angry woman. Sure she got
angry but her faith always brought her through it. My mother wasn't perfect. Yes she had a hard life and sometimes got mad at the world
but she was so full of love for her family and God that I never saw anger take
root.
I called her “mama” or “ma” and sometimes “mother.” She was without a doubt the most
selfless woman I have ever known.
Dorothy is her name and she was born to Cajun parents and spent her
childhood living in New Orleans and Cajun country. She married quite young and became a widow young as
well. After the death of my father
she was angry, but when you have young children to raise and bills to pay focus
is necessary. When I grew up and
stopped being a self-centered teenager I was proud of my mother and all that
she accomplished. Since loosing
her husband after only 20 years of marriage she got her GED, and a full time
job. She went to a trade school
then got an even better job. She
worked through debilitating and chronic illness, often at two jobs. She was also an amazing seamstress
using that talent to supplement her income. She kept a roof over our heads, paid all the bills, saw her
daughters marry and have their own kids.
She was there when we needed her.
She lost her father just a few years after getting married. I saw my
mother loose her mother, her husband, her best friend and two of her older
grandchildren. My mother was the
strongest woman I have known, even at her weakest. I know with all my heart that she was there waiting for
Madison as my girl arrived in heaven.
My mother had a stroke the same day that a doctor said he
had never expected Madison to live as long as she had. Madison was nine years old at the time,
and that doctor was her cardiologist.
Crazy thoughts began to run through my mind. I know after a tragic event we sometimes look for signs to
have it all make sense in our head. My mother was in a coma for a week before she
died, and I started to think my mother traded her life for my daughter's. To hear what the cardiologist said and
then loosing my mother so soon after, that was my conclusion. It's been eleven and a half years since
I lost my mother and I still think about that day and everything that
happened. Sometimes it still feels
like there was a trade made behind the scene between God and my mother, buying
time;. There's that concept again.
I believe she was that selfless.
She adored her grandchildren and worried about Madison so much because
of her health issues due to Marfan syndrome. Maybe I am being self-centered to have such an idea,
maybe. I know that time can make
the past seem rosier than it was and my mother was not a saint; but she loved
her family with all her heart. She
was a devoted mother. She was my
biggest supporter, my biggest fan and losing that unconditional love of a
parent was devastating. I always knew my mother loved me no matter what. That is how I have tried to make my
children feel, loved, no matter what.
I can only hope that I love them as well as my mama loved me.
