Who said, "How do I love thee, let me count the ways? I'll bet you can guess.
However, I'm here to tell you, that however flawed your relationship, that no one loved you like your mother did.
I've been working on a poem, about this beautiful begonia plant, which my mother had been caring tenderly for, up until the time of her final illness. I rescued the plant, brought it home, and have nursed it back to health where I failed to do this for my mother. (I tried, I just was unable to bring her back to health, and instead, with the help of hospice, eased her into her grave.)
I have lost my father. Lost my brother. Lost both my grandparents. I have even lost a child, albeit my stepson (whom I raised).
I did not even have the most idyllic of relationships with my mother. But ... I did love her. Deeply.
No one prepared me for the fact that this would simply does not seem to close. It gets to the place where it can be lived with ... but it does not scab over, let alone grow a new, thick skin beneath. At least, not yet. And it's three years and counting.
This is the poem I wrote today, and the photograph is of the plant I still care for, caring for her.
