Never Too Old To Need Your Mom

When it comes to this blog, I struggle.

That person who shared the components of her happy home, family, garden and vintage treasures seems like someone I can hardly remember anymore.  

I am reminded that the blog was primarily started at the time my mom was in the throes of Alzheimer's and we were moving her closer to us.  It seemed like such a sad, unsettled time.  The blog world was so new to me and such a welcome reprieve from real life.  

It's hard to put into words how the blog world helped me through that time in my life.  Although, if you are a blogger you most likely already understand how these connections are so meaningful in myriad ways.

In a couple days it will be 17 years since my mom passed away.

How is it possible that that many years have passed, I wonder.

I've never quite been able to decide if I believe that our loved ones who have passed on leave signs for us.  While a comforting thought, I'm not sure if I have known this to be true.

Do you have any thoughts on the matter?

Finding myself in another sad, unsettled time, I am beginning to wonder if perhaps this is true if we are paying close enough attention.

For instance, the daisy in my photo above. . .

Last year I tossed a packet of daisy seeds in a pot on the patio.

As the summer unfolded a few sprouted.  They sort of hung on without much growth.  I left them as is over the winter.  This spring more green shoots emerged from the pot.  I wasn't even sure if they were weeds or daisies so I let them be.  Most of the summer they were just foliage.  I kept watering them and one day a stalk started growing.  Up it went and soon a bud formed on the end.  I waited and waited for it to open and one day out popped that one daisy.  My mom loved daisies and I always associate them with her.  That one daisy stood tall for several weeks never to be joined by any others.  Each time I saw it I thought it so odd to only have one flower.  Strangely it felt like it was trying to get my attention and tell me something.  Stranger still was that I truly felt like it was my mom telling me to stand strong in the face of my husband's illness.  I might add at this point I was often totally overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we were facing.  In fact I often had a nearly overwhelming desire to have somebody wrap their arms around me and allow me to cry like a baby.  Me, a 68 year old woman, clearly wanted my mommy.  Quite honestly I was terrified of what we were facing and wasn't sure that I had it in me to do what I needed to do.

Thank you, Mom.

Another sign (?) presented itself this summer.

One night while my son and grandson were visiting we heard what we thought was an owl.  We went outside and turned on the bird app only to have it confirm that it was a great horned owl.  We also discovered that two of them were communicating with each other.

I might add that I have never heard an owl since I have lived in this house.

Owls take me back to a time when I was in junior high school.  It was a time when I was dealing with some difficult things in my life.

One day mom suggested we both start collecting something.

This seemed a bit odd to me as my mom wasn't really someone who collected things or wanted many knick knacks sitting around.  Dust collectors is what she usually referred to them as.

Perhaps this memory stands out because it was unlike her.  I now know it was probably her way of bringing something happy into my life at that time.

Anyhow, I decided on owls and she chose mushrooms.

I don't remember her collection ever becoming very big.

Mine, however, soon overtook my bedroom.  Before long everybody associated me with owls and I often received owl related gifts.  That often seems to be the way it goes with collections.

This fall season my decorating is somewhat minimal.

My owl collection is long gone, but I have acquired a few in recent years.  Without thinking much about it I chose to include this owl candle in my foyer vignette.

My favorite reading chair sits across from this.

More than once I have been reading in the evening,

all is quiet until I hear the whooo of the owl outside the window.

Mom, is that you?  ;-D

For now I am choosing to believe it is mom continuing to mother me at a time when I could really use it.