Hibernate Blog

Funny how DNA works, little rivulets sluicing through a person, the strength and presence of which are ever changing over the course of a life.

A lifetime.

One moment I see the face of my daughter, wholly her own person, and the next, my mom comes to me. Her bright eyes shine back at me within the curves of Sara’s face, the lines of her mouth, punctuating a smile, “Look, Mom, look at the flower I picked for you.”

My eyes blur as memories of picking flowers as a girl, my sister behind me and my mom waiting near by wash over me…”Look, mom, flowers.”

I take the flower from my daughter and for a moment it is as if my mom is back, no longer gone forever, her death yet-to-happen, and our future an endless possibility. Watching my children grow, reveling in being a grandmother.

My friend.

“Mom?” I look again and my daughter is there, hand outstretched, and we walk. Nate is in my arms, his tousled hair tickling at my neck as he burrows his face in my shoulder. We explore the woods behind our house, point at clouds in the sky and laugh at scampering creatures. Behind us I feel the vapors of longing and sorrow wafting away.

It has been several years now since she died. My children, once so tiny in her lap, wrapped up in her arms, are different. Their faces changed from those bittersweet last months. I wish she could see them now, wish she could see me.

It’s Mother’s Day weekend and though she is no longer here to touch, I still reach for my mom and some days I find her…she is in my Naters and in my Sara. And in the moments when I need her most, she is in me.

My mom.

In memoriam, Judy Coleman.
April 30, 1943 – December 7, 2005