My mother passed away last week. It happened quickly, leaving the family stunned and in shock. It doesn't seem quite real yet.
We're glad for her that she didn't have to endure a long illness or live as an invalid, which are prospects she would have dreaded.
Islay Brown-Hodgkins lived a fairly quiet life that revolved around family, her kids, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews. All of them that could make it descended on my little town this week.
Some drove as much as eight hours to attend the funeral. Two of my daughters flew halfway across the country to be here. Family members ranged from newborn to mid-eighties representing the Brown, Harris and Hodgkins clans.
Old friends from different eras of her life, from several generations, paid their respects. If I have inadvertently left anybody out, it's just that there are so many people and I have lost track.
We knew there would be many mourners, but we were taken by surprise by the numbers of people who flocked to the memorial service. The place was full to overflowing.
Not bad for a quiet life centered on family.
Mothers sometimes feel like their influence and importance is in the background of their children's lives. They hope to have made a deep impact on their families, but we all know there are so many other aspects to our children's lives, we hope not to be ultimately be lost in the shuffle.
We know we are just mom. And we hope that being mom will have lasting value to our children, and our children's children. We also know, this doesn't always happen, and only time will tell.
Family relationships can go through many changes over a lifetime. A relationship with one child may be rocky at one time, and become solid at a later point.
A child's understanding of their mom goes through many metamorphoses over a lifetime. Maybe at one point mom is a mainstay, taken for granted. Perhaps at another stage of things, she is a burr under the ol' saddle, thwarting some desires and impulses.
As our kids have their own kids, a new understanding of the trickiness of parenthood can arise for them. A dawning of the realization that it ain't always easy being a parent, that some of the things that might have seemed like pure cussedness on mom's part were actually loving parental attempts to help a child grow up safe and whole.
My mother raised five children. Through us she had nine grandchildren. She remarried in her fifties and through her two stepsons amassed a dozen more grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She became a new sister-in-law to another family who had her own special place in that circle, became Aunt Islay to the new family's step-nieces and -nephews.
She outlived all her brothers and sisters, and became the surrogate mother for all her nieces and nephews, grandmother to all of their progeny. She was the matriarch at the yearly family reunions. This summer, the reunion will have an empty space that no one can fill. That no one wants to have filled.
Friends from more than half a century ago were in attendance that day. Friends of her children who thought of her as their second mom, the woman who understood them better than their own mothers. Friends of all ages mingled, with Islay as their common bond.
I still don't feel convinced that she is gone, things happened so fast. But I know with time the realization will come. I don't look forward to it.
She may be gone, but her legacy lives on, in many branches of love and the family tree. It is a tremendous legacy, built and established by a quiet life and a love of family. Here's to you, Mom, and your great success.
Visit Jody's website and blog at http://www.ncubator.ca and http://ncubator.ca/blogger