Oh Jaynie, I'm so sorry. I wish I was there to give you a hug.
Your tribute was beautifully written and the Will to make it so ... was palpable.
Your Mom's paintings were beautiful (I had no idea I liked elephants so much) and it's apparent where you inherited your creativity and artistic skills.
While your Mom's soul may be in Heaven, the essence of who she was remains on Earth. It resides in the billions of synapses of those who remember her and in the beliefs and behaviors that such remembrances inspire. Cry now but, as quickly as you can, get to a place where you can remember her with a laugh ... for that is as she would have had it.
I leave you with a poetic toast I once wrote. The roles are reversed but the sentiment remains the same. I hope in it you may find some solace.
Two Beats
A thousand miles am I from home,
At war on distant shores,
Flares and fires and fearsome foes,
The guns, how do they roar.
Beside me lay a brother broke,
The time for him has come,
Perchance you'd think he'd speak to God,
... But he calls out for his Mom.
Did beat the blood that brought to life,
That beat, did life it stir,
It beat the blood, a Mother's heart,
Before you, yours ... was hers.
Now at the end, they beat again,
Two beats, then just the one,
A glass of wine, two hearts entwined,
Alone ... dies not a son.
I wrote an accompanying essay:
Do people know when they’re about to die?
Most soldiers who’ve spent anytime on a battlefield would probably answer in the affirmative. Although science has never been able to explain 'what life is,' human beings seem capable of understanding when “it” is almost gone. What is remarkable is what happens in the minds of the dying in the fleeting moments before the inevitable becomes inescapable.
Despite Western cultural elevation of individualism, human beings are incredibly social animals. We don’t want to live alone and, most assuredly, we don’t want to die alone.
Irrespective of religious beliefs (all of which, by definition, require faith – the belief in something one cannot prove), none of us can say with certainty whether death is the end of existence. Psychologically, the closest thing we actually have to the concept of 'life after death' … is being remembered. Being remembered means that the ‘concept of you’ will live on. What you need, therefore, is someone who believes that the world would be a lesser place but for the fact of your existence … and can, therefore, be trusted to keep you in it.
So who can you trust to ensure that ‘you'll live on?’ Most frequently, it is the person that ensured that you’d live in the first place. Your mother.
At some point during pregnancy, a woman experiences the phenomenal insight that “I” is now “we” and that “mine” has become “ours.” What happens to the one, happens to the other. Such profound interconnectedness leaves deep roots in the brains of both, roots that cannot be erased by time or space. As long one can remember the other, neither can ever be truly alone.
Quill
.
.
.