Happy Mother's Day!!  I got thinking about my mom yesterday.  She has been enjoying her reward since December of 2001.  Wow!!  That seems like a long time ago.  A memorable transition took place in my relationship with her.  Driving home from Uncle Gene Jordan's memorial service--1991 I think--it occurred to me and saddened me that all kinds of nice things were said about someone after they were gone.  About this same time I had been re-reading a little book entitled, "Making Peace With Your Parents".  I realized that I still got irritated with my mom when she would remind me to put a hat on when it was cold outside.  Clearly, I had not yet made the transition to relating to her adult-to-adult rather than child-to-parent.  An 'ah-ha' moment flashed for me.  Almost at a moment in time, I began to see my mom in an entirely different light.  Certainly, she was not flawless.  But I began to see with greater clarity and appreciation her great qualities:  her COURAGE, she pretty much raised four children by herself.  Married off her only daughter and watched her oldest son go to Viet Nam in the same summer; her HOSPITALITY, she was a gracious and welcoming hostess (even when the Vikings were playing.  She was highly skilled at positioning herself with sound off on the TV able to see what was happening while entertaining Sunday guests.)  She had friends all over the country.  Her Christmas mailing list was somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 people.  Many people have told me personally how welcome she made them feel in her home; her GENEROSITY, with her limited financial resources but also with her home and with her time.  She mentored young moms and volunteered in youth programs at her church.
Her memorial service truly was a celebration of her life, attended by a wide variety of ages from children who she had been with in the youth program, to those young moms she mentored, to her peers.  She was 78 when she took her last breath of this earth's air.
Earlier, I referenced the drive home from Uncle Gene Jordan's memorial service.  That night in St. Paul was the beginning of the transition of my relationship with my mom.  I began to tell her then how much I appreciated her.  Thankfully, ten years remained in her life for us to foster an adult-to-adult relationship.  It wasn't perfect.  But it was pretty much all right!