the moon

perhaps it is the full moon that tugs at us and teases out the unexpected. i have been on vacation this week. though i had best laid plans, circumstances changed and i have found myself at home instead of traveling. oddly it has been invigorating and refreshing. i have ripped through files in search of unnecessary paperwork and given my shredder a workout. my closet has not been spared either. i've culled my wardrobe prying from it favorites i haven't worn in some time. these particularly i find hard to give up. all in all though i feel pretty good about the removal of clutter from my life.


unexpectedly i have been ridding an emotional clot as well. i have risked venturing into an area i haven't been willing to go to in the time since my mom has been gone. during my cleaning and organizing frenzy i came across a digital voice recorder i had tucked away. on it are the last words my mom left me in a voicemail. she spoke them in the last remaining days of her life. "hi darlin'," she said. "i just wanted you to know i'm not dead yet." that was her humor. even as i heard her voice fast forwarded from the past, she still made me laugh.


also on the recorder was her funeral service. the bishop (a mormon pastor) found out i had recorded it and scolded, telling me it was forbidden since it was recorded in a chapel. I had promised to erase it immediately to assuage him. though i usually do what i say i will, that is one promise i am glad i did not keep. i had a lump in my throat as i sat to listen to it. i was unsure how i might feel or if the pain would be too much to bare. oh yes, i cried. and yes, i laughed. and just as the service was intended, i was comforted.


i don't know, maybe she was sitting right there listening along with me. i had such a feeling of peace and happiness. mostly i felt grateful. grateful for having spent time on this plain with her. the gift in it is that we were best friends. she told me often that before we were born we'd surely made a pact to be mother and daughter. that we both had something to learn together from this adventure. though she was my mother we found often that our roles reversed as we both needed. we never took that for granted.


my mom used to tell each of her children the same thing as we left home, "we are under the same moon honey. when you miss me just look up and know that we are looking at it together." over the years no matter how far away, when even continents divided us we knew she was looking. she has been dead for nearly 8 years now. tonight as the full moon nears the earth and brightens the sky, i am certain of one thing; that we will all be looking up knowing somewhere she is also looking at the same moon.