Snapshot: Marianne

This weekend I will be thinking about my mom, who died of breast cancer fifteen years ago tomorrow. Wasn't she pretty when she was a girl?

Consider the following for a minute, people. And then see if you still need to ask me why I am not ever particularly jazzed about Thanksgiving . . . .

Fifteen years ago our family celebrated a singularly bizarre series of life passages in one week: we lost my mom on a Monday, attended her wake on Wednesday, celebrated Thanksgiving and the tall boy's fourth birthday on Thursday (he got a bike!), eulogized Mom at her funeral on Friday, and ate birthday cake with my wonderful mother-in-law on Sunday. I hope you can see why I am always a little ambivalent about this time of year!

The month of November is always a jumble of emotions for me, but if right now I had to pick just one feeling I would describe myself as melancholy. I find it interesting that our family's month of remembrance (we have lost more than one family member in November) parallels the wider cultural and religious annual traditions of Veterans' or Remembrance Day, All Saints Day and All Souls Day. I swear it sometimes feels like the whole world misses my mom in November.

I miss her all the time.