The Warmth of the Sunshine

Today we laid my mom to rest, placing her ashes in her “niche,” if you’ll remember from my last post. Today is also Veteran’s Day.

Veteran’s Day represents the 11th day of the 11th month, November 11th, 1918, the end of World War I. As the country paid tribute to the veterans who fought for our many freedoms in battle, my family and I paid tribute to a veteran in a battle of a different sort.

To outsiders looking in, cancer is a battle they do not understand, although they can imagine its challenges. For those of us who have to watch its devastation and torment as it plagues our loved ones, our friends, our mothers, we truly understand the battle. With that being said, we only know the battle as a caretaker, a husband, a daughter, and we must watch them suffer as we stand helpless in the corner. We must accept their disease and move on from our anger, we must be behind them every step of the way, we must be supportive of their breakdowns and meltdowns, and we must kiss them on the forehead and say our very last goodbyes when they lose their battle and continue on to Heaven. This last part, of course, is the hardest job we face as concerned friends, worried family members, and devastated daughters.

And all of these things are absolutely not in any way to be compared to what the victim of cancer goes through.

I, every day, grow even more proud to be her daughter and more inspired to be as strong as she was.

The service today was very short but very beautiful. Her niche is inside a mausoleum, and as we sat inside, facing a glass wall, we were able to enjoy the beautiful Fall day and it helped to set a comforting tone for the ceremony. Father Tom, who also presided over her funeral, discussed mom’s battle with leukemia and paralleled it to a veteran’s battle at war. The two are completely different but are nevertheless both challenges none of us ever want to face. To conclude the ceremony, Father Tom read the poem on mom’s memory card from her memorial service.

“I’m Free”
Don’t grieve for me, for now I’m free
I am following the path God laid for me.
I took His hand when I heard Him call,
I turned my back and left it all.
I could not stay another day
to laugh, to love, to work or play.
Tasks left undone must stay that way.
I found that peace at the close of the day.
If my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss
Ah, these things I, too, will miss.
Be not burdened with time of sorrow,
I wish for you the sunshine of tomorrow.
My life’s been full, I savored much.
Good friends, good times,
a loved one touched.
Perhaps my time seems all too brief
Don’t lengthen it now with undue grief.
Lift up your heart and share with me.
God wanted me now; He set me free.

-Author Unknown

I really love this verse. It actually makes me feel comforted, although she is gone. I miss her so much I feel aches through my body and there are days where I feel so lost in my life, but the lines “If my parting has left a void, then fill it with remembered joy. A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss, ah, these things I, too, will miss” renew me and remind me that we will just have to go on with our lives and miss each other until we are able to see one another again. I do not want my life to end anytime soon, but I have to say that I cannot wait to see her face again. Oh my gosh, her face! She was so beautiful.

After Father Tom’s quick ceremony, we placed mom’s ashes in her niche. We put several things in with her. She loved her sparkly ballcaps, and her favorite and the one she wore most often was the white one. We laid it on top of her urn. When she was first diagnosed, I found out which color ribbon represented leukemia (orange), and I made two bracelets for mom and I and a keychain for my dad. Mom’s bracelet had a silver, flat piece among the beads that said “hope” with a ribbon charm hanging from it. I put that in with her ashes, as well as a picture I painted her last year for Mother’s Day. It is a picture of an angel hugging a girl, and it is supposed to represent her and I together. I like to paint angels, and I painted different kinds for all of my aunts, but this one was special for my mom. The angel had her hair color and she wore the same necklace and wedding ring, which I painted in gold. This morning, as I looked at the painting, I got out a permanent marker and wrote on the wooden backing against the canvas “Mom—I loved you more than you will ever know. You are my hero and my angel.”

I always considered her to be so special to my heart and to be so sweet, just like an angel. And now, she really is my angel.Today started out to be quite challenging, for different personal reasons involving job searching and just the simple anticipation of the ceremony today, among other things. I felt oddly calm and comforted afterwards. Tonight, before I sat down to write this, I again was bombarded with the stress and anger and fear and worry that are currently plaguing my life these days. I re-read the passage after I typed it into this post.

“Be not burdened with time of sorrow, I wish for you the sunshine of tomorrow.”

There will be tomorrows, unfortunately, that will no longer contain my mom. But there will also be sunshine. Recently, even among the chilly, Fall days, whenever I feel the sunshine against my skin, I think of my mom. This line really struck me, and I no longer feel the same way about it. Now, I will remember that the sunshine is a message from Heaven, from my mom, to continue on with my tomorrows. She would do anything to get me through this without her, and what better gift is there than the warmth of the sunshine?