It’s six months ago today that my mother died. Last week we reunited the entire extended family, including about a dozen relatives from Germany, at my mother’s house in NJ and spread her ashes at the base of a newly planted flowering tree (a Saucer Magnolia) in the backyard of the house that she designed and lived in for 20 years.
In the past six months I’ve thought of many things.
I’ve thought of how beautiful the spring season in Atlanta is right now, and how I always wanted to share that with her and put her to work in my yard.
I’ve thought about that awful light jazz soft rock that she liked to play on the stereo in her house, and how horrible that was for the music snob in me.
I’ve thought about her frugality; how she taught us to save money, pay off credit cards, be very careful about taking on new loans, and how she demonstrated to us how to slowly make ourselves wealthy.
I’ve thought about how you had to prepare for her visits, and I don’t mean clean the house, I mean invent projects for her to work on because she was a blitzkrieg of project making. Yardwork, carpentry, tilework — her idea of a vacation was to work on projects in somebody else’s house.
I’ve thought about when I was a boy, I told her I’d buy her a Mercedes when I got rich.
I’ve thought about how she got rheumatic fever as a child, and for her entire life had to live with a serious heart problem, and that it’s really a miracle that she was going strong at 65.
I’ve thought about how strange it is that just a month earlier she had turned 65 and was finally able to stop paying those exorbitant medical insurance premiums.
I’ve thought about how she was always interested to talk about science and hear about the technology that I was working on, and how we joked that in a later time she probably would have become an engineer herself.
I’ve thought about how I can’t just call her up anymore.
I’ve thought about how sorry I am that I didn’t get to go on our planned trip to the Galapagos Islands, but how happy she was to know that she would finally be going.
I’ve thought about how she made a custom piece of stained glass artwork for our renovated bathroom, but never got to see it in place in our house.
I’ve thought about how strong-willed all three of her children are, and how we got that from our mother.
I’ve thought about how someone at the October gathering said that she made you think that you were the most important person in the world to her.
I’ve thought about how she built the house for herself, and how perfect she made it for herself.
I’ve thought about how she was the center of the family, and how her house is now the center of the family, and how wonderful it is that, with Julienne’s help, we will be able to keep the house in the family.
I’ve thought about how her final resting place is right in the backyard of her home, under a new tree, in view of the bird feeder.