God sent a baby to comfort me…

Woke up this morning to a Happy Mothers Day email from my niece. She wanted to share from a book she had read and here is the excerpt she sent me.

“For there will come a time when the lucky child who felt enough to weep then will at last be able to smile and say ’Remember when mommy read me those stories, remember when she danced, remember when she made my costume.’ When the friend who thought she would never recover from grief, when the husband or wife who thought his own life was over, will cease to cry, will be able to take pleasure in saying: ‘Remember how she used to lean her head back when she laughed?’ ‘Remember how he loved to garden, out there way past the last frost’? ‘Remember when she cut all her hair off and was so sorry?’ “

Daniel paused, a long pause. His voice when he spoke again, was soft, nearly a whisper. “And feel the pleasure in having her there again. In bringing him back to life for those moments. A new life. Truly a life after death.”

His face seemed to tighten. “Because if metaphor is one of the ways we have left to approach God, to begin to understand faith, memory itself is a living metaphor for the eternal life.” He paused, then slowly said, “Loss brings pain. Yes. But pain triggers memory. And memory is a kind of new birth, within each of us. And it is that new birth after long pain, that resurrection – in memory - that, to our surprise, perhaps, comforts us.

“It comforts us. And that comfort-and even joy-the comfort that rises within each us by the grace of God: that comfort teaches us something, here on earth, about eternal life. It makes us all feel something we can believe in about its promise.”

“In this world, God gives us pain. But He gives us memory, too, to change that pain to laughter, to joy. To bring the dead back into our lives. To comfort us. To make us understand, by this living metaphor, His tender power… “

I confess I was preoccupied by other things Sunday morning to stop and think about my mom that is until our minister said a prayer to and about mothers. Mentioning people who had lost their mothers made the emotions of my lose swell up in me again and a few tears to my eyes. But the good Lord had arranged for me to sit behind Monica and Linaya. I was originally headed for a seat next to Ruby but Sarah asked if we could sit with Bev and Nicole in the back row so that is where we ended up – right behind Monica and Linaya. At the end of the prayer when I was trying to control my emotions and thinking I wasn’t going to be able to, I looked up into Linaya’s big eyes, her big smile and giggle, and her fingers pointed at me. How could I cry when there was this beautiful baby smiling at me? So I wiped the tears from my eyes and smiled back.

It reminds me of how much my mom loved babies, holding them, talking to them, and memories of mom holding my daughters as babies. I remember the time my brother brought a new baby into the house and announced he was the father. While the rest of us stood there with our jaws on the floor, mom just picked up Kyle, talked and played with him.

Yes, there does come a time when we smile and laugh at the memories instead of cry. When the memories of the past with mom over rides the memories of when she died. I won’t say I’m totally there but I’m getting there.