Mommer and Me

  This time of year is very emotional for many people and I am no different.  (In fact, to be perfectly honest, I teared up at a Folgers commercial on Thursday.)  There are people in my life who are grieving this Christmas season for loved ones lost recently and for those lost long ago.  Holiday traditions that are different now by necessity not choice can be difficult to establish and maintain when the heart longs for past traditions.
   Yesterday, while baking cookies with my kids, I missed my grandmother, Mommer,  so much that my heart physically hurt.  She has been gone a lot more than a decade now, but in the moments of the batter flying, I could hear her singing very clearly and I missed her profusely. I remembered the days in her kitchen decorating sugar cookies and making a mess; her happy face accented with flour smudges.  My Mommer was more than a grandmother to me, she was the constant in my chaotic and often drama filled childhood.  She taught me to rollerskate and iron shirts. She taught me how to move through tough situations with a song in my head. She taught me to snap green beans and mow grass.  She taught me how to hold my head high when people said terrible things about my family and I. She gave me the best parenting advice I have ever received when my kids were babies.  She loved me unconditionally and specially even though I was one of thirteen grandkids.  She loved each of us that way.  Throughout the years, I have often woke up thinking, I have to ask Mommer about this only to remember when I was fully awake that I could only do that in my dreams.
  Last night, as I was cleaning up my own cookie mess in my own kitchen, I worked to reframe my missing her and also to come to grips with the enormity of the struggle for those working to reframe larger and more recent losses.  I wish my reframe would have ended in some profound miracle salve for the heart that I could hand out in little boxes with big bows. But it didn't.
   Here is the everyday miracle that I finally landed on.  The everyday miracle is that I was blessed to have Mommer in my life. She made me a better person, mother and friend. I see her influence in my life everyday. I got to hold her hand and now I hold that memory tight. 

  Sending a little box with a big bow to those who need it this Christmas season.  Trying to live as a blessing in the lives of those around me. Everyday miracles in cookie batter and chocolate chips.