Distraction

‘Daunting’ is the best word to describe the task she faced as she looked at the lifetime of accumulated possessions in her mother’s house.

It seemed that everywhere she looked there were knickknacks that meant so much years ago but that now just accumulated dust.

She decided to start in the craft room – her mother’s favorite place in the house and where she had spent so much of her time.

Tears welled up in her eyes and rolled slowly down her face, leaving the ‘tracks’ that Smokey Robinson so eloquently described.

Reaching for her mother’s most recent - yet unfinished - project, she was surprised to see that it was a scrapbook of sorts.

Amid the requisite pictures and keepsakes pasted into the book were handwritten notes – her mother’s comments and pearls of wisdom in one-liners.

Catching her breath, she turned to the front of the book and started reliving the moments her mother had captured in word and picture.

Time melted away as she was transported to each occasion memorialized in the book and she could almost visualize herself there once again.

It was if she was seeing her own life through her mother’s eyes and words, gaining a rare insight into the thoughts of the woman who had chosen to be her mother.

Oh, if only she could spend just another day asking those questions about herself that only her mother could answer.

Nearing the end of the book, she found a note from her mother next to a picture of them together: “My only hope is that you find someone who can make you as happy as you made me the day I adopted you and every day since. I’ll love you forever.”