Today is my mom's birthday and it is also the day that I watched the Garth Brooks biography special on A&E. They touched on his song "When you come back to me again" which is a tribute to his mother. I've never thought of my mom while listening to that song but I have alwasy found that song to be very powerful. It makes me have a lot of feelings. This year I have been dreading my mom's death day more than usual because my daughter is at the age and place in life that I was when my mom passed. That hits hard. But we aren't going to get into that today.
Today we are gonna talk about how my mom was/is my lighthouse.
When you come back to me again by Garth Brooks and Jenny Yates
There's a ship out, on the oceanAt the mercy of the seaIt's been tossed about, lost and brokenWandering aimlessly
And God somehow you know that ship, is me
'Cause there's a lighthouse, in a harborShining faithfully
Pouring its light out, across the water
For this sinking soul to see
That someone out there still believes in me
On a prayer, in a song
I hear your voice and it keeps me hangin' on
Rainin' down, against the wind
I'm reachin' out, 'til we reach the circle's end
When you come back to me again
There's a moment, that we all come to
In our own time, and our own space
Where all that we've done, we can undo
If our heart's, in the right place
My mom certainly shined faithfully for me and everyone her light could touch. She was many peoples' "person" before Grey's Anatomy coined the concept. When marriages failed and lives were lost and battles were faught, she was a constant for all around her. Maybe her lack of mobility contributed to this...my dad and I certainly always knew she would be there when we walked in the door. She was literally and metaphorically always there.
Now that she is gone and has been gone for TWENTY YEARS, I will be really honest, I do not remember much from my talks with her. I don't remember her voice or her smell. Maybe the trauma of losing her took those things from me. I remember things she did like buying Avon and cooking a full breakfast for my dad every morning. I remember how she made me feel. She is still my lighthouse because she is in me. She gave me strength and confidence. There are a thousand ways I am unlike her and yet somehow I carry her in the pocket of my soul.
I hope this doesn't speak to my faith but I have never really thought about seeing my mom again. Maybe because it is too morbid to consider that one day I will not be on this earth. But today I celebrate that she was born and that she will come back to me again.
