THE PEACE OF GRIEF

In the twilight of this morning,
When all of time meets and folds over
and in and on and between itself,
I went back to my mother's dying and told her of my love.

I was the child offering the mothering.
She was fetal, wanting, waiting.
I love you, I said, it will be okay.
She was fetal, wanting, waiting.

My fingers smoothed over her brow.
Love her, Lord, make it okay.
My cheek touched the forever smoothness of her cheek.
Take away her darkness, Lord.
Tell her I loved her.
Tell her I love her still.......


It has been almost ten years since my mother's death. I think I am finally at peace with it and with her. Thanks be to God!

OOooops! 122 Pounds

The scale hasn't hit 120 since March. Maybe the Philly Cheese Steak last evening did me in. OR perhaps it was the two Blue Moon beers. Hmmm. Beers. Doesn't look right. One beer, two beers? Seems like the plural of beer should be beer -- no "s." Oh, well, I digress.

I whipped out my Sanoma book and copied out the Phase One food lists. Will stay on the Phase One program until I get back down below 120. Weight Watchers strongly discourages checking the scales more than once a week. For me, this is just stupidity. So maybe the extra IS water. So what? Get rid of it. The weigh in every day works for me.

AND, this is the important part -- this works for ME. May not work for you or a kazillion other people. I am just saying that daily weigh ins keep me on track.

My mother was an inveterate dieter. Also an habitual exerciser. Mom was attractive, took good care of herself, and was proud of her looks. And rightly so. BUT, and here is the real stickler, she was always at me to be thinner. I got to believing that she would love me more if I was admirably thin. And this is stretching into my fortys and fiftys. I wasn't obese but I was always twenty to thirty pounds overweight. When my husband died in 1992 I weighed in at 175. Well, I guess that is a little more than twenty or thirty pounds. A few months of dinners consisting of vodka and popcorn brought me down to 135. I have since passed on the vodka, and with Sanoma, pass on the popcorn except for very special occasions.

Achieving my ideal weight AFTER Mom died was kind of a waker upper. Did I care? Initially, I said that it didn't matter. Then, after I lived with it for a bit, I realised that it DID matter. A lot. I wish she could see me the way she thought I should be. I wish she could see that I'm not any smarter and not any prettier. I wish she could have loved me for ME.