To my Mom

Today is my mom’s birthday.

Audrey Donna (Anderson) Arnold was born on March 10, 1920. She died on December 19, 1999.

My mom has been gone from this earth for over 17 years. That’s a long time. I get scared sometimes that I am forgetting her. It has been so long since she was a part of my daily life, a part of my kids’ lives, or a part of this world. I haven’t talked to her on the phone or gone shopping with her for almost two decades. Her laughter and her wisdom have been absent from my life for all that time. Where she once was, there is only silence – years and years of silence.

The silence eats away at me. What wisdom would she have offered Emily and Laura as they married? How many of Emily’s beautiful creations would she own? How would she have reacted to hearing Joe’s original music? What suggestions (or stories) would she have shared with Laura as she began her kindergarten teacher career? What would she have thought of seeing David act on the same stage where she saw R.J. act so many years ago? What wisdom would she offer R.J. and me as we head into the “traveling on our own” phase of life?

Mom and Dad with our kiddos, not too long before Mom passed away.

She would be old now – 97 years old. She wasn’t truly old yet when she died. I think of 79 as young, especially after my interactions with Dr. Woolner as he lived and even thrived past the age of 102. What if her aorta hadn’t given out after her open heart surgery? What if she had instead recovered from that surgery? How different would my life be if she were still here on earth?

Dad and Mom in October of 1999

Of course, none of these are questions I can answer. I can’t picture what she would look like now. I can’t imagine her voice anymore. I don’t reach for the phone to call her, like I did for quite some time after she died. There are many days when I don’t even think about her. I miss her desperately, but after 17 years, I don’t really feel like I know her anymore. How did that happen?

When I get in a mood like this, I eventually realize how to hang onto my mom. Her spirit of delight is never far from me, spilling forth in my joy in teaching and love of small children. I see her physical features, in form of the thick hair and elfin-noses of my girls. I hear her optimism in the quick laughter and joyful banter of my children. I find her appreciation of the world God made when I experience the beauty of a seashell or the quiet of a star-lit night or the chill of the frost.

I rejoice, because I have not forgotten her. She is everywhere.

Happy birthday, Mom. Oh, how I miss you.

Grandma Sadie, Mom, me, Emily, and Laura