Pursuing my mother's happiness.

My mother seems to be happy and healthy at this time. I didn't blog about it as soon as I got back from Alabama (we got home on the 15th) because I had to email all family members first, to let them know the details, then there was all that unpacking, then it was Easter Sunday, then school started back up... it's been a busy week, what with Flat Scalzi being here and then the moth emerged... so I put the Mom entry on hold until I had time to think about what I wanted to say.

Since I had mentioned her in a few previous entries, I should at least mention the results of our time together last week when my husband and I drove to Alabama.

I think the pictures say more than my words can.

Not everyone in my family is pleased that mom has moved to Alabama, and I understand especially my sister's point of view. Her moving has resulted in more than a separation by miles. It seems to have separated a few hearts as well.

I remember a mother who gave a whole lot of her time, her love, her spirit, and her courage to making sure her seven children grew up healthy and strong. The happy part was for us to pursue. She helped us get to adulthood, and you know, that counts for something in my book. Now she is pursuing her own happiness. I wish her well on that one.

When a person loses her husband, daughter, and granddaughter within a five year span, then she loses her home, you have a major crises situation. When that person is strong-willed and independent, you are not going to contain her, control her, or even bribe her to live with her children. No matter how much they want to take care of her. Right now, she obviously doesn't need that kind of taking care of.

Hallmark would have us believe that every mother is an angel, their cards describing the mothers of our hearts. When I think of my mother, I only think of the good because that's what is important. All her goodness, all her laughter, and all her time spent working so we could have the things we needed growing up. There were times my mother was the only angel I knew.

My mother would be the last person to see anything about her life as angelic. She would laugh at the idea that she was an angel for anyone. Yet, I know many people who say "You're mother is an angel.," because of some act of kindness she did for them. Yes, sometimes my mother was an angel.

She has never claimed to be perfect, and she doesn't always do what is right in the eyes of her children. Whoever does? Lord knows I haven't always done what is right in the eyes of my son, either. I'm sure one day we'll have that talk and I'll be saying, "Yeah, I'm sorry about that one... you're right, I shouldn't have done that." I hope he will forgive me for my many mistakes, misjudgments, misunderstandings, and misdeeds.

Who ever has lived a life free of mistakes, absent of lies, without doing or saying something that hurt another? Not anyone that I know of can claim that kind of life except Jesus. And it is because of what I know about Jesus that I can forgive and be forgiven. Therefore, so is my mother.

Despite any wrongs, real or imagined, done directly or indirectly, I have to say that my mother has every right to pursue her own happiness as well. She's raised her seven kids. If she chooses to live away from her family, so be it. Someday, she may choose to return to be the grandmother we all want her to be. But will anyone let her be the kind of grandmother she wants to be?

My husband says it this way, "Toni is Toni. She is not going to be any different to make someone else happy." I have to accept that. She is as unique an individual as any other I have met. Why should her maternal relationship to me change the way I think about a person's right to live their life in pursuit of what makes them happy?

When she is ready to leave where she is now, I want to be there waiting for her with open arms and welcome her back home. That is not a new idea. That story was told two thousand years ago.