Letters to Mom

Dear Mom,

I miss you mom. Many tears have I shed like blood coming out of a wound. Today I again experienced that excruciating pain of a back that is worn from having to carry too much of a burden. Just when I think I am well on my way to caring about others as you cared for all of us I ache. I am reminded that I have limits. I cannot do as much as I would like. Your death reminds me I have only so much time and I need to learn to use it wisely.
I see you everywhere I go mom, smiling and reaching out as I fear the worst, wishing me well. I sit in my car and tears rain on the city. They do not want to stop. They are tears of healing. In the letting go of tears the healing can begin. One scripture I learned early on will serve me well. Only as you sow in tears can one look forward to reaping joy.
I decide to get up from where I am at. Do I want to be whole/well? There is something about writing in a notebook that assuages my pain. I am comforted. I may seem alone and isolated, so far from where you raised me, yet I know that in my heart I will learn as you did about the peace of God that surpasses understanding.
I thank God for the gift of you, and for your support of my love for writing that allows me to tell a tale. Even as I finish this first letter I hear the last verse of Silent night. Sleep in heavenly peace. In this moment I realize I am not alone. I knew your caring presence, solace, friendship and reminder to keep going and not quit. There is a song from a group called Casting Crowns. I can hear the chorus: Sing the song so the whole world can hear. I pray God will help me find ways to sing your song. It is a song of celebrating life and the ones God gave you to care about.
Love your Son Gary

Dear Mom,
Thanksgiving is here and it is so difficult to feel thankful. How could God take you from the ones who loved you most? We literally loved you to death. You meant so much to us and many people tell us that you are in a better place. Tell that to your grandkids and your children who long to reach out to memories which are all that is left.
How could a loving God be so cruel as to take you from us? I have trouble wanting to worship such a God. How can you be happy in a place that does not have us there with you? We grieve, how can you not grieve seeing us hurt so much? I have a lot of trouble with the idea of the vision of all these happy people finally getting to heaven and not in some way feeling for those who are left behind. Are you really laughing and singing as you look down at family members who are miserable without you.
What kind of God is it that offers up such an inglorious vision? It is just like a Turkey full of stuffing. There is so much stuff that we are supposed to remember and who is truly the Turkey this year, our mother, us or people yet to be born who will never know your touch. Yet part of me wonders if she did really leave us behind. It is a mystery that will not be solved in this life. I may be blasphemous but there are times in this grieving process that I wonder if God is the Turkey.
If that is the only truth that I am left with for this year I would rather let the holiday pass this year. There must be a place somewhere where all of us can once again be thankful as in times past. This year this place ceases to exist.
Please forgive me Mom, Your number one son, Gary.

Dear Mom,
I have had many days to think about what I wrote on Thanksgiving. It was an awful day for me. I worked the whole day and near the end was in a shouting match with an on call person. The person was from the company where I do my caregiving.
As you know I have had a different way of thinking about the place you are at since all my inner parts were vomited out. There is a different way to see how this whole idea of heaven plays out, but believe me mom I will never understand as much as I would like. I had been so angry thinking that God stole you away that I forgot that you are in a much better place than you were at when you were suffering. At the bedside of death, we were at a place alongside you not knowing what else could happen in the name of love to end this fight.
Even as we let you go, you left us for a better place. We were left to trust that you were in a better place. You knew you did your job as a mom and that your kids would be alright even if they might have good and bad days. In that intimate moment before you left I am sure there were regrets. There is always the feeling that things can be different in a better way.
I realize in the letting Go moment God is the one who knows what is best for all concerned who have suffered more than enough. When you let go of someone you love it is a very difficult pill to swallow and people heal in their own time frame and way. Maybe in a funny way the pain and healing is the draw. I am not yet with God or more importantly you Mom!!! Mom your love and our love will once again bring us together. What a blissful thought! The ocean of tears that we shed is the environment from which we can sail forth with the lighthouse of your love leading the way. May the same love that brought us together again bring us back together again? Praise God. Pray for us!!!
Love Gary