iMessage from Heaven

My beautiful mother years ago in front of her home in Inman Park.

My Mom passed away just over a year ago. I haven’t been able to write since. I wasn’t as close to my mother as I would have like to have been, but we were as close as we could be and I loved her dearly. Mom struggled with paranoid schizophrenia. Although her life was often very sad, she remained functional, independent, funny and kind.

She lived tucked away in her childhood home in Inman Park, Atlanta. We visited as often as possible and every few years I could talk her into letting me bring her to my house for a visit. One of those times was the Christmas before she passed away. It was pouring down rain in Atlanta when I drove down to get her. She was soaking wet by the time she got to the car. She had been walking with a limp for the last couple of years. When we "hobbled" together we made for quite a display of grace. We couldn't help but chuckle. It was hard for her to make that visit. I thanked her profusely for coming and I told her how much it meant to me, knowing that I would never ask that much of her again. I will always treasure that visit.

Growing up with a mother who questioned my identity and heard the FBI walking on our roof was often scary. There are so many stories I could share, and maybe someday I will. Of course, there were a lot of funny stories, too. I like to remember those. My sister did a beautiful job of sharing some of those funny stories in Mom's eulogy. Please see my previous blog to read that tribute to Mom. 

We often can’t help but to recreate what we know. At a fairly young age, I recall being aware that things weren't right at home. I knew who I was and I knew those were squirrels running across the roof (not the FBI). When I was 11, my parents divorced and, soon after, my father became a psychologist. Not surprisingly, therapy and processes of becoming self-aware became an important part of my family life.

That’s not to say I’m an example of stability and sanity. Lord knows I am not!  As a mom, I often get carried away and have been guilty of over-parenting, or over-compensating trying to create a "better life" for my kids. How crazy is that? In an effort to avoid "crazy" we often create another "crazy."  Every article addressing the woes of “helicopter parenting” might as well be written directly about me! Gosh, there isn’t a perfect formula. Well, maybe there is, but I sure haven’t found it. My Mom did the best she could and at the end of the day, that’s what I have done. We're all imperfect, we're all works in progress and we love in the best way we know how to love.

Every once in a while I pull out my iPhone and listen old voicemails from my Mom. One message is a couple of minutes long as she describes being attacked on her front porch by yellow jackets. She was so funny and boisterous and descriptive. I felt like I was there. I miss Mom’s 6AM phone calls where she was just calling to check in. I miss how she always sounded like she was on the verge of laughter. Thankfully, I have those messages on my phone. It’s like a little iMessage from Heaven, reminding me she’s not really that far away.