Young, beautiful and awaiting adventure. My Mom brought out the best in everyone she knew.

I posted this on my facebook profile today:

I am who I am today because it’s who my mother believed I could be.

I’ve been mulling this posting over the past weekend – in anticipation of what I consider one of the worst days of my life: the date of my mother’s death. Death. Not a “passing” (although I do strongly believe in an afterlife), but death. Final. End.

My Mom played such a strong part in my life for my entire life. She was fun, outgoing, energetic, strong, caring, beautiful and wonderful. She was the perennial champion of the underdog. She believed in the goodness of people, the strength of family and that doing was much more important than just thinking. She was brave, she was independent and she was loyal. My mother was strongly committed to the betterment of her family and her community. She was an excellent role model for a more skeptical cynic like me.

It’s funny – my mother has been gone for three years now. I miss her every day. But I still hear her voice in my ear – maybe louder now than when she was here. When I am being harsh in my criticism, she tells me to soften. When I am being impatient with my children, she urges calm and a change in perspective. When I am acting selfishly, she guides me to have more empathy and compassion. Every day she helps me.

Despite the fact that yes, my mother is dead, I continue to love her (maybe even more now than before) and more importantly learn. I hope one day to be not only what she believed I could be, but even better.