Mama

My mama passed away right before thanksgiving.  We put together this slide show to play during her memorial.  There was this one picture that shows her as a young girl at a farm with the wind blowing in her hair.  I had never seen that picture, or actually most of them.  I wished I had known that little girl.  My momma wasn't perfect, but she wasn't horrible either.  She was human like we all are. 

I believe she thought her greatest accomplishment in life was me, and my brother and sisters.  I believe it was how she was able to love the people she loved so well that they knew she loved them.  She was a big believer in telling the truth...especially to young people.  Changed a few lives with her truth telling.  So much so that the folks who considered her mom weren't just me, and the children who came from her womb.  It was the child who felt unloved by her mother.  The child who was rebelling against everything, and everyone until my momma told them the truth about themselves, and it most of the time slowly set them free. 

She changed just a handful of lives that way, but when she was in with someone she was all in, and made sure the truth stuck whether they liked it or not.   I think she did it, because it is the one thing she never accomplished for herself.   She didn't know her own mother's love.  She therefore wanted to give to someone else what she didn't have.  A mother's love.  Wow...what a gift to give someone. 

Unfortunately for me I didn't realize that a mother's love is a precious thing until later in my mother's life.    I never understood my mother until I realized that her own mother didn't love her, and never would.  No matter how hard she tried to win her love.  She was still trying to win it.   Even though my grandmother has senile dementia and most days didn't know who she was.   When she could remember all she could recollect was the bad blood between them.  I wish she would have had someone like her in her life.  Someone who could be her mother.  I know though now she is with the Father who is giving her the love she never had right now.  I miss you Momma.  Thank you for being my momma.