The Bitter & the Sweet.

January is the bitter/sweet month. We have just come through 2 anniversaries &  are about to land on a 3rd when I pack my bags & head north to my mother.

Because numbers really do not exist I survive the anniversaries quite well.  I am unlikely to remember this is the day I got the phone call @ 5am to tell me my youngest brother was dead or this was the day I saw my father lying still warm but very dead under a hospital sheet.  My mind does not work that way.  Days are just days but a light aircraft droning overhead can send my heart palpitating suddenly with visions of metal falling from the sky while grey haired old men of a certain age & height can cause me to suddenly burst into tears distressing everyone around me.  Deary, deary. Life can be a terribly uncomfortable thing.

Why, asks the ODD, do all my relatives die @ Christmas? They don't, of course.  It just seems that way. Still January is when I try to be with my mother as the 3rd anniversary approaches because we spent so many Januaries with them celebrating my father's birthday & he always said his birthday went for the whole month & took every excuse to purchase something sweet to celebrate!

I expected, as I got older & the demands of my children grew fewer, that it would be easier to get away to spend time with my mother.  It has not happened.  Instead it has become more difficult. There are the cats, the church & 2 businesses ~ all of which apparently need me. There is the garden & bible study & a host of other things & of course my mother continues to get older. She is finally starting to slow down, distressed as year by year the circle of family & friends grows ever smaller.

So ODD collected me & drove me north & for a week I didn't do much of anything.  I ate.  I slept.  I read. I listened to the stories of my mother's life ~ again ~ & I didn't begrudge it. We all know tomorrow is not vouchsafed us.