The Gift of Two Mothers

Emotions have been running high lately. Dealing with crazed hormones should be enough, but this week also marks a year since my mom's passing. It was a year ago today that she started asking about "going home" and then started seeing and talking about family members who had already gone before her. I'm learning that sometimes tears lurk just below the surface and they will leak out when I least expect it.

 It's actually hard to believe Mom has been gone for a year already. It's been a long year of slow letting go, letting go of Mom and letting go of my own shortcomings. So many memories, so many things I wish I'd known, so many deep and heavy sighs...

A poem was shared the other day and I passed it on to my cousin who is just stepping into the role I stepped back out of a year ago. I wish I'd known about the "two mothers" years ago. Though I'm sure it wouldn't have changed the task at hand, it might have given me a little extra insight into what were actually "normal" changes that seemed so abnormal at the time. I barely got a chance to savor the second mom because I didn't know I'd been gifted with two...

Two Mothers Remembered 
by Joann Snow Duncanson

I had two Mothers - two Mothers I claim
Two different people, yet with the same name.
Two separate women, diverse by design,
But I loved them both because they were mine.

The first was the Mother who carried me here,
Gave birth and nurtured and launched my career.
She was the one whose features I bear,
Complete with the facial expressions I wear.

She gave her love, which follows me yet,
Along with the examples in life she set.
As I got older, she somehow younger grew,
And we'd laugh as just Mothers and daughters do.

But then came the time that her mind clouded so,
And I sensed that the Mother I knew would soon go.
So quickly she changed and turned into the other,
A stranger who dressed in the clothes of my Mother.

Oh, she looked the same, at least at arm's length,
But now she was the child and I was her strength.
We'd come full circle, we women three,
My Mother the first, the second and me.

And if my own children should come to a day,
When a new Mother comes and the old goes away,
I'd ask of them nothing that I didn't do.
Love both of your Mothers as both loved you.