Missing My Mother and the Bonds that Never Break

    Yeah, so it's been a few months since writing.  Things have been crazy and hectic and I've found my thoughts drifting back to my mother.  I think I've kept busy to avoid feeling too much the pain of her passing.  It's been 1 year and 3 months since she went home to Christ.  I still miss her terribly.  As with any close relationship we had our ups and downs.  Our unforgettable moments, our disagreements.  No matter what though, my mother always wanted the best for us, did the best she could, and tried to give us so much.  No words can express the hole that has been left in my heart.
    I was at peace with her passing though.  It was beautiful, she was so peaceful.  She was surrounded by her children, in her own home, and even though she appeared comatose, we knew she could hear everything.  I think things were especially difficult for me as I was pregnant and due to deliver by c-section one week after her death.  She had held each of my children, and she would miss holding my 4th baby.  I whispered in my mothers ear on her death bed.  I told her how much I loved her, how much I would miss her and how jealous I was that she would see little Sarah before I would.  I asked her to hug Sarah and kiss her cheek for me.
         My mother did indeed kiss her cheek, just two days after her passing my water broke and I delivered my baby.  Sarah had an extra soul watching out for her, my mother told her it was time to come.  We could have lost her in two ways, her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck 5 times, had a true knot in it and was so tight she was born with petechiae on her face.  It was also found that I had a large uterine window, essentially meaning I had started to rupture.  My Ob said I wouldn't have gone another day or two and I would have had a castastophic rupture and seeing as how I live at least 40 minutes by ambulance from the nearest hospital, we would have lost Sarah and possibly my life as well.  My OB and his nurses kept saying how my mother was watching over the baby and me.  I know they were right.  The gift of her life was given again in her death.
    Tears fall, and the lump returns in my throat as I recall all these events.  The pain is still very fresh in my mind, my heart still aches, I can still hear her voice.  Always there, always comforting, always loving.  I don't despair over her passing.  Her last years on this earth were filled with such suffering.  Suffering, and prayer.  She was always close to the Lord, but never more so than her last years on this earth.  The act of her suffering was in and of itself a prayer, I think of the highest order. 
    I wrote a poem in honor of my mother's birthday last year.  I'll share it.

A Mother's Love Always Remains

I knew you as a baby, small, warm, and perfect.
I knew you as a little girl playfully laughing with your sisters picking berries and climbing trees.
I knew you as a young girl watching your father shoe wild mustangs and perfect his art of blacksmithing.
I knew you as you watched your mother run quickly into your home to get away from a black bear who wanted to hoard all the blackberries for his own.
I knew you as a young woman working hard in the fields picking potato's.
I knew you as you skillfully shaped your drill team into champions.
I knew you as your life changed when you married and had children of your own
I knew you then, now, and always because the memories of you precious life live on through me.
What pieces of your heart you remembered to share will never leave me.
You joys, struggles, dreams, sorrows, all remain part of me.
New chapters of life are being written even though you are no longer with us.
The best part of you remains with me.
The best part of your love encourages me.
You reside in my heart always.
A Mother's Love Always Remains.

    Never let a day go by without love.  

“When the time comes and we cannot pray, it is very simple—let Jesus pray in us to the Father in the silence of our hearts. If we cannot speak, He will speak. If we cannot pray, He will pray. So let us give Him our inability and our nothingness.”
—Blessed Teresa of Calcutta