My mom

I lost my mom in 2017. I clung to her body. I was not ready to let go. I don't think you are ever ready to lose your mother - no matter how old or independent you are. My mom was my best friend and a loving, gentle mother and grandmother. We all started calling her "Gammy" after her oldest grandchild named her that. She was full of life and loved to laugh. I will always feel proud that my sister and I were able to make our mom laugh even as she lay fading away at the age of 88. We sat around her telling the funniest stories we could think of that she always loved to hear. She wasn't able to talk and we weren't quite sure if she could hear us or if she was sleeping - but as we shared our funny stories, we noticed her chest was rising up and down and her belly shaking - she was laughing listening to us.

I dreamed of my mom about a month after she passed away. In my dream, I walked into my childhood bedroom. I was looking at some things that belonged to my mom and I was feeling sad because she was gone. Suddenly, she appeared in the doorway laughing and smiling. I said "MOM! I though you died!" She came to me with her arms open just laughing and smiling and held me. I woke up feeling as if it had really happened in real life. You will never convince me that it was "just a dream."

My mom always said her greatest accomplishment was raising 8 children. I was #8 - the baby. Losing my mother was a profound loss in my life. I don't think I'll ever not miss her - even when I'm 88 - if I am lucky enough to live that long. It was after my mother's passing that I started creating to process my grief. I started with sewing and crewel embroidery. It later evolved to watercolor painting and jewelry making. In my initial creations, I used vintage thread from my grandmother's stash which had been passed down to my mother's sewing stash - and then to mine. Using the colorful threads from the 1930's on old wooden spools labeled 5 cents, I felt connected to my mother and my grandmother whose hands had held the same spools. I have my father's hands and I think of that too, as I work and create. Those who came before us never leave us, I am convinced. They live on in our DNA and in our spirits, our thoughts, our dreams, our memories - and in the beauty we create. Their blood flows through my veins and their hopes and dreams live on in me. My mother and my grandmothers and all who came before them are woven into everything I do.