One Year

Yesterday was the one-year anniversay of the Sunday my mother passed away - Sunday, October 22, 2006. The one-year anniversary of her death is actually today, but I thought about it more yesterday than today, probably because it became a so-not-normal Sunday for us. We didn't go to church. We didn't listen to the service on the radio, which is our habit when we're not feeling well and decide to stay in. We didn't leave early to drive to a Sunday afternoon Titans football game in Nashville. And as I was preparing for church, asking God to give me grace to get through the day without being a needy, whiny, look-at-me basketcase, He had already been setting the wheels in motion for me.

When I was growing up in southeast Florida, my mother and I used to play organ-piano duets in church a lot. Oh, how my mother could make an organ sing! Sometimes we'd sing duets together, also. One of our favorites to sing or play together was "Ivory Palaces." I've not heard that song in years.....more years than I can remember. Yesterday Linda Abel and her daughter, Jennifer, were scheduled to sing in church. You guessed it, they sang "Ivory Palaces." Here was this mother-daughter team singing so beautifully together what my mother and I used to sing together on the one Sunday when I needed to hear it the most. The emotions came over me, but I kept myself together, thanks to my husband, Chris, who put his arm around me and grabbed my hand with his free hand. I closed my eyes and praised God for His eternal provision for my mother.

I miss my mother, but I wouldn't bring her back here for anything. I wouldn't ask her to leave what she's experiencing at this very moment to return to this fallen world. I'll miss her but briefly. Before I know it, I'll see her again. I hope she greets with me her familiar, "Hey, doll!"