Fin as in End

I've mentioned before that my mom died in September of last year of lung cancer. This is my first Mother's Day without her. She wasn't the "bestest" mom, but she was my mom. Even though it's been eight months since she died, I've still thought at least five times that I need to go and buy her a card and wondered if I should pick her up something else for Mother's Day. I'm still getting use to the fact I can't pick up the phone to call her and tell her the things that no one else in this world is interested in hearing but a mom. I just keep those ideas to myself now. Also I'm hoping one day soon tears will stop welling up in my eyes each time someone brings her up in conversation.

 Ruby, my 96 year-old grandmother is still alive. She is my mom's mom. My mom was her only child and my grandmother helped raise me through the years when my mother wasn't sure she wanted to be a mom. Ruby is laying in a hospital bed right now, ten hours away from me, and these are probably some of her last few days, possibly hours. She has been sad since her daughter has stopped visiting her and she can't really understand why. She just knows she misses her. Ruby also knows she has outlived almost everyone she's ever known. Her husband has been dead for 35 years, her brothers even longer than that. She's went to the funerals of all her friends, visiting some in the the nursing home as they took their last breaths.

The hardest part about living is the ending. There are many endings. Our childhood eventually ends. Our free young adult lives end when we have children. AND then moms this is the cruelest part, those same children that needed us for so long will grow up and leave us and not need us anymore. Try not worrying about them after 18 years of it being your sole duty to keep them safe and warm and you'll find it's not so easy. Everything has an end. Some ends lead to new beginnings here on this earth and other ends are more final.

This all leaves me to wonder what end is next and I'm anxious about it. Then with my next thought I realize I can't live my life anticipating the end because I'll miss what comes in between the beginning and the end. I'll miss the living. "Don't miss the now," I hear whispered to me.

                                                                           FIN