Holidays and Missing

With Thanksgiving and Christmas, I find that I think about and miss my mother more than I normally do.  I don't think that it ever goes away, it just becomes more acute during the holidays.  To explain why, I have to tell you a little about what my mother was like.  By the time we lived in India she had had four children.  My brother was a few months old when she fell in love with and then adopted Sabrina.  They went on to adopt another, a boy who is now 13.  When I came home from college, I never knew who would be living in the house.   A single mother, a down-on-his-luck young man, a young lady who needed someone to care... our house was full, whether it be children, or adults.  My mother never raised her voice-I mean never (okay,maybe twice).  She was incredible loving.  She almost never wore make-up and use to drive me crazy because she would pair a beautiful cashmere sweater with a flannel skirt.  There where two rules that are front and center that she taught me and that I continue to repeat to my children: 1. if you have nothing nice to say don't say it (she never gossiped-I try not to but I am not as successful as she was.)   2. what drives you crazy in other people, is a reflection of a characteristic that you have and struggle with - greed, pride, etc.  (unfortunately, I have come to realise that this one might also be true.)

Five and a half years ago, she was walking my youngest brother across the street to his First Holy Communion.  She was struck by a car in the cross walk.  She was able to push Chris.  I don't think that he even had a bruise.  She died soon after the impact.  I never met the man who hit her.  The six of her children have dealt with the loss in different ways.  I have felt that God has given me the gift of forgiveness.  I did not want to be angry at the man who hit her or God.  To this day, while I miss her, I have never been angry about the details of the day.  I am so thankful that we had had our daily talk earlier in the morning.

That brings me to the missing part.  My mother was an incredible cook and baker.  As the wife of a diplomat, she had made an art of it.  So, every holiday that involves food....I sometimes forget that she is not here and go to call her for a question on some recipe. Or, I start crying when I making one of her pies.  By the time the pies are made, the turkey stuffed, I have worked it out and am back to being thankful for having had her for 35 years.  It has made me more empathetic when my friends lose loved ones.  

So to the adoption part.  I wonder, too, if the experience may give me a grain of understanding as what the newest member of our family may experience around his/her birthday or other milestones.  Will he or she struggle with missing someone or somewhere, or doing something like making pies?  Will he/she even be able to articulate the feeling?  Will he/she be too young to register much?