Monday Mourning

Questions have been asked why I haven't written a tribute to my mom like I did for my father-in-law after his death.  The truth of the matter is I am keeping a promise.  When I started this blog over four years ago, I wrote about my brother and his struggle with deadly pancreatic cancer.  I didn't sugar-coat my posts, because I have never viewed life with rose-colored glasses. My extended family wasn't happy that I wrote of family matters, and politely requested that I not ever write about my brother or any of them.  I promised them I never would, and to prove my conviction,  I deleted all the posts from those early blog days, and have pretty much limited my posts to generalities when writing about parents and siblings.

Often over the past few years, my mother would bring up a subject or a memory and then about a week later ask me if I wrote about it in my blog. (She didn't have a computer and never actually saw this blog.)  My answer was always no - that I made a promise and I keep my promises.  I was never certain if she actually truly wanted me to write about those things, or if she was testing me and waiting to chastise me in case I ignored her wishes.  I'll never know the answer to that.

One of my blogger friends told me her family and friends LOVE to have her write about them in her blog.  She even has a blog, lovingly filled with humor and sadness, entirely dedicated to her mother who suffers from Alzheimer's.  I'm envious.  People's lives are best honored in written word and shared, even with strangers.  Lessons can be learned, experiences empathized. Oral histories are unreliable and, as generations die, the stories will fade away, like old photographs.

So don't look for extended posts filled with anecdotes of humorous times or exasperating moments with Mom. Her memories will forever be held in the souls of those who loved her and not shared with the public. All I will say is that she was, in the words of those who knew her, " a beautiful woman inside and out," "a very, very nice lady," and "an asset to the local community."  So I guess in some ways this is a tribute after all.