Love Like its the End

My mother left my father the spring of 95.  By that winter she had remarried him on December 13th and passed away on the 27th. That is love. Realizing in the end that you can’t live without them. He stuck by her side from the moment she found out about her cancer. The only times he would leave her were when he was either forced to or spent time with us children. I was privlaged enough to help him chose the engagement ring. Which I was given and cherish to this day. My mother, who never had a wedding band of her own, who would tell you she didn’t care for one, cried when he gave her this ring. But one thing I can say for love, with each seed of it that is planted thrice are planted of hatred.  That following year, after her death, my families fell apart. There was so much fighting and discord, I wanted to hide. Not one person could look past it to see that she, my mother, had loved so many people so much, the pain of her absence was too much to bare. We should not have bore it alone as we did. We didn't’ come out stronger for it. It’s made us divided and it still hurts. I’m not my mother, I can’t love as she did, I can’t fill holes that she left. But, I can remember.. How fully, wonderfully she loved me. How she worried about Valerie and treated her as her daughter. How there was no one else in the world like her Big brother Mark. How she wanted to give the world to her baby brother John. How there was no one in the world as perfect as her grandmother Carrie Lou. When she was hurting, her sister was the one she longed for the most. When she couldn’t find peace she knew her mom Juanita could at least give her time to find it. She was one of a kind and I still call her mine.