[crystalsmom]

Originally Posted by ryorkies

I wrote in a previous post of losing my father, what I did not mention was that I lost my mother soon after ( a year later on Mother's Day ) and then my husband passed away in January of the following year. I couldn't possibly pick just one person to spend a day with, as it would just break my heart to do so.
I was with my husband when he passed. He had brain cancer and it was a long process, but I was so grateful to have been with him at that very moment of passing and I do believe we spent many moments telling each other all that needed to be said.
I had also been with my father and he too was sick for a very long time, but as mentioned in my previous post ...we were able to speak in what I would like to believe this very way.

My mother passed suddenly and although she had health problems ...noone suspected she was this close.
I think the things I would share with her would be that I now understood why she was not as loving as I would have hoped. My mother was a child of the war and lived in Germany during that time. She met my father while he was fighting the war and he came back for her after. She was frightfully young, only 17 and to top that off ... she had given birth to my oldest sister during
that time. No one suspected what the war had done to her, but my father soon realized after bringing her home
to the states that she was suffering from mental illness. He never once told us this as children, but as we grew older ...we began to realize that something was not right with our mother and she was very different from the mothers of our friends. I harbored resentment towards my mother for many years and thought how differently my life would have turned out if she had been kinder and more understanding. Now I realize how different HER life might have been if it were I who had been more understanding and kinder to her.
I cannot go back and change this, but I would love to have just one more day to express to her how I now understand and realize how difficult her life must have been and how frightened she must have also been. How I now realize that mental illness is just that ... an illness. In my heart I know that everything happens for a reason and that all the puzzle pieces fit together to form that reason, but I would love to pull that one puzzle piece out .... if only for a short loving moment in time.

What a beautiful post and how insightful of you to see this now and understand!!