My Other Mother Died

August 26, 2020, a woman who I recognized as my other mother for 27 years passed away after a long and arduous battle with diabetes. Of course, I had my mother as I was growing up, but this was a woman who accepted me as a part of her family simply because I was her daughter’s best friend. I think it is even possible that I may have spent more time with their family than I did with my own.

I have so many amazing memories that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, and even more life lessons learned from this amazingly strong woman that will never leave me.

As a child I remember going to the beach, church on Sundays, having food fights, doing crafts and attending Native American pow-wows to name a few of my treasured memories.

She taught me so much about living life to it’s fullest. She taught me about who I am as a woman, and how to be strong and stand in my power. She helped me to connect with my spirituality, and she never judged me for what I thought or believed.

But my favorite life lesson and one that I will cherish and live by forever is that we create our own happiness from within.

She was a woman who as a child was torn away from her Native American roots and forced to go to the “white schools”. She was abused every single time she went to school. She was punished for speaking in her tribe’s language. The Canadian government stripped her of all of her rights and freedoms.

Yet she never complained. She refused to be broken, and always greeted each new day with a smile no matter what adversity was thrown at her. She was a firm believer that you create your own happiness and that it can be found despite what you may be going through at any given point in time.

Through her brave fight with diabetes, she smiled. She lost her leg to the disease, but she smiled because regardless of what was happening, she created her own happiness.

It’s funny how we never really stop to think about the consequences of losing someone we hold so near and dear to us. Life gets busy and we think that we will have a conversation or go visit later. But sometimes later never comes.

When she went into the hospital to make the final trip back to the creator, I was unable to go say goodbye because of COVID restrictions and it literally broke my heart not to be able to be there. To have your final visit through a photograph sent digitally is an awful thing to have to go through.

I wish I had stopped to talk longer and made the 2-hour trip to go visit her. I knew she was sick. I knew she didn’t have long left with us on this earth, but I didn’t take the time and now a piece of me is gone. There is a hole in me that can never be filled by anyone or anything else.

Life is too short not to pick up the phone, or make that trip. You may not get a later. Do it. Tell your loved ones today that you love them, or better yet, show them because actions speak far louder than words ever will.

You are forever in my heart and memory. I will always love you. Until we meet again.