Thing is, I don't miss Mom's face. If I want to see Mom's face it's everywhere. I can look at pictures of her when she was young, freshly married and impossibly beautiful like a glamorous movie star.
Or when she was in the prime of motherhood, hair tied back in a bandana surrounded by a passel of kids but still ridiculously stunning.
I've got pictures of her in her thirties surrounded by her sisters, laughing and carrying on.
Elegant shots of her at inaugurations and galas and weddings and charity events. Pictures of her as a kid, with the kids, at home and in hospitals. Shots from holidays and of course too many pictures of her in that bedroom.
If I look in the faces of my sisters and brothers, my nieces and nephews I can find bits of her there. So I don't miss her face.
I look at these pictures taken with brownie cameras, and polaroids, cheap 110 cameras and disposable 35mms and then digital cameras and flip phones and of course, smart phones. It's the phone pictures that hurt me.
I've got videos of my cat chasing rubber bands and my husband opening presents, my daughter tap dancing and countless little kids yelling "Watch me! Watch me!" and in all that time I've, in fact we've, had a ready, easy source of video it didn't occur to any of us to turn it on her.
After Mom died and the initial numbness that carries you through planning a funeral and smiling bravely going back to work I began to long to hear her voice. Something as stupid as an old voice mail would have sufficed. "Hi this is your mother. Call me." But I am good at pressing 7 so I didn't have an old voice mail.
I wish I had taken my phone out of my pocket and recorded her giving candy to Wub. Telling her about some rock in her collection or any damn conversation at all. I didn't know I needed to and now I regret it.
Today is Mother's Day and I miss my mother. I miss her so much. Not her face...her voice.
