mom

The craziest, most serendipitous thing happened:

My souster (bestest friend, soul+sister=souster) works in a photo lab, and she called me to tell me she and our friend were printing a set of snapshots, and the women in the photos really reminded them of the YaYas (my mom's girlfriends.) They looked closer, and realized they were the YaYas and my mom was in some of the pictures. I asked her if there was any ethical way to get me a set of the photos, and they'd already contacted the woman and told her who I was and gotten permission to give me a set.

It's so crazy. Mom hated being photographed, even though she was so gorgeous, so I don't have a lot of photos. These are at least seven years old, so it's just crazy this lady happened to find them and decide to print them. Then, she took them to souster's lab, which is unlikely because they usually do high end processing for professionals and I doubt they get too many snapshots like that.

It's freakin' awesome. I can't wait to post some photos.

-------------------------------

I've been dreaming about Mom again, and they are disturbing lucid dreams where she's alive and I know when I wake up she'll be dead. Also she doesn't know she is dead, and if I mess up and let it slip she'll be gone. It's so weird. I always have to ask her why she's not dead or why she doesn't remember that she is or was sick, and there's a horrifyying scared look on her face. It's so vivid. I guess my own motherhood's bringing things up again- I used to dream this constantly.

Or it's in the stars, because a bunch of people are dealing with this. Thordora at Spin Me I Pulsate has a beautiful heart-wrenching post about her grief today. And when I talked to souster the other day, she was telling me that she and her eldest son have been missing her Dad a lot. He died the year after my mom did. The strange thing is that her little guy was just a year old when his grandpa died. He keeps talking about Grandpa like he knew him, in a sends-chills-down-your-spine, psychic and beautiful way. That kid is so amazing and cool. He's named after my mom, because souster got pregnant within weeks or so of mom's death. That was such a beautiful gift to me that she named him for her. It's a good reminder of how, in the big picture, birth and death are perfect mirrors and there's such beauty in the light and dark.

The macrocosm of death is easy to revere and understand. It's when one small, specific life is gone from you that the devastation happens. Someone who's echo keeps making patterns in your life long after they've gone.