Gifts

My mother’s final gifts:

The last piece of jewelry my mother will ever bestow upon me is the little black button with a ribbon the Rabbi pinned on my dress at her funeral.

Suddenly I am seeing signs behind everything: This morning there were two streaks of white across the bright blue sky, and I know they were left by planes somehow. I remember always being fascinated by those kinds of stripes as a child. But today, they were the bread crumbs left along the roads leading into a distant future where my mother will be waiting for me.

Becky came to my son’s Bar Mitzvah last June and then waited until the following April to pass. We had our last birthday together when she turned 90 in July and she let us share a summer free from pain and worry. She knew I would not be able to bear losing her in March because that is the month when my Aunt Ruth and Father died. That month could not hold anymore pain and sorrow in my life. She waited until it was warm and sunny so I would not have to stand in the cold or the rain while I walked with her to her final resting place. She chose how to live and when to pass. It was always all up to her.

Words…

Of everything she gave me, it was always her words that meant the most.