Blessed are the dead the rain rains on

This morning it is raining and tonight is my mom’s visitation. I rose early and thought of the line from an Edward Thomas poem, “blessed are the dead that the rain rains on”. I believe Scott Fitzgerald said it too, somewhere in the pages of “The Great Gatsby”.

My mom died early Sunday morning and on Monday I received my edits for ‘Scrooge and Marlee” from World Castle Publishing. It’s an upcoming release that I anticipate very much and I was going to wait to start the edits until at least Friday, after the visitation and the funeral but I need the distraction so I have begun.

Mom always encouraged me in my writing, so much that my first work was dictating a story that she wrote down long before I could write and I added crayon. She cheered every publication starting with my first poem, published on the children’s page of the hometown newspaper, The St. Joseph News-Press when I was eight or nine, right up through the college paper and college literary magazine works, then the early stories and pieces with my byline. My dad did too but he passed away before I became not only a writer but an author.

That support and encouragement never dimmed, ever. In recent years, vision problems prevented her from reading my newer works but she still always asked to make sure I continued to write.

 I don’t think she would mind that I turn to my craft to occupy my mind. Later today, my children and I will finish putting together a memory board to display at the visitation and funeral. Going through the photos and other memorabilia has been hard yet wonderful.

There’s no way we can use all the photos we collected and surprising things turned up as well. Handwritten notes from my grandfather, my mom’s dad, are precious and priceless. His love for his wife and his children, especially “the baby” are expressed in pencil, in neat handwriting, by a working man who hailed from southwest Virginia and died far too early.

One of my earliest memories of my mom is that she would rock me to sleep each night in an heirloom rocker that had been in my grandfather’s family for four or five generations. She would often sing some of the songs that her daddy, who died when she was five, had sung to her but there were many others. I can remember her teaching me to kneel beside my bed each night and to say my prayers. I had a little Catholic Golden Book of Prayers. The first prayers that I remember are the Hail Mary and the Our Father.

When I was small, like most mothers in that era, my mom worked and so I spent my days with Granny and Pop. She always managed, however, to come home to prepare supper after she picked me up and to spend time with me. Before we settled into the rocking chair, she or my dad would read to me for. Every time we went to the grocery store, I expected to get a new book and usually did.

After my brother was born, she became a full-time stay at home mom. In those days in my hometown of St. Joseph, MO, in the old neighborhood, we were blessed to live nearby many of our family. Granny and Pop lived on Tenth, we lived on Eleventh, and my Uncle Roy and Aunt Susie’s family lived on Ninth. My maternal grandparents lived nearby as did the majority of other family members.

 In the summer, we spent a lot of time with Tom, Mary, and Bill, our cousins who lived two blocks away, so much time in fact that sometimes my cousin Bill, who died last November and probably greeted Mom when she passed, called her ‘Aunt Mommy”. We also spent time with my Aunt Janet’s family and her four children. We went on picnics at Krug Park, swimming in the public swimming pool where Bill and I mostly stood nose to nose among the crowded kids, or sometimes to a movie. On Christmas, which was also her birthday, we had big family celebrations in our home with turkey and dressing, birthday cake, and a lot of love and laughter.

My mom was a fine cook. My dad always said she made the best apple pie and when she baked homemade cookies, it was a special day. Her fried chicken required her grandma’s cast iron skillet and a perfect blend of flour and seasonings that put the Colonel’s to shame.

illustrations.

My dad passed away in 2009 and the years since became increasingly difficult for her, with many health issues, so much that she seldom left the house. Still, she remained devoted to her family and especially to Our Lady. 

There was a poem that she kept and that she asked me to read at her funeral which I will read it, as she wished:

Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep. I am in a thousand winds that blow, I am the softly falling snow. I am the gentle showers of rain, I am the fields of ripening grain. I am in the morning hush, I am in the graceful rush Of beautiful birds in circling flight, I am the starshine of the night. I am in the flowers that bloom, I am in a quiet room. I am in the birds that sing, I am in each lovely thing. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there. I do not die.