One Year Later Sans Mom

Tomorrow is October 13 and in addition to all the birthdays I have memorized from this month I have a deathday. I have thought of it coming for a long time, but with no real special significance to the anniversary (other than me remembering dates - like learning she might have cancer on October 4 the year before). I was at JLYS tonight. October 13 was a Wednesday night last year. I didn't have much work last October right before school, so I hung out with my Mom instead. She and my Dad didn't come to the annual Thanksgiving extended get-together. So I think we stopped by to drop off a gift - an electronic keyboard, since she couldn't get down to her piano. I remember staying with her at the hospital and walking around her ward and she stopped to play and there was a whole extended family in the room who got to benefit. I remember taking her for rides outside at the hospital after she couldn't walk anymore. I remember choosing paintings for her room when they came by to offer new ones. I remember parking somewhere in Parkdale and walking over to avoid paying for parking. I parked a ways away in Kingsland before seeing her on her last day too. I had made myself a playlist to pray through walking over and the linked song was on it. This morning it came on by shuffle and I was singing along and it starts off light-heartedly enough, and I was light-hearted enough, right? But the 5 1/2 minute bridge came along and at 6 minutes I started yelling violently enough to completely drown out the loudly playing stereo, "Hey! You'll never find another - Hey! Hey! You'll never find another - Hey! Hey! Hey! You'll never find another - Hey! Hey! Hey! You'll never find another - "
My throat still hurts.
Sunday afternoon I was exhausted and went to have a power nap but it turned into two and a half hours. I subsequently couldn't fall asleep and ended up awake until 3:30 AM. So I purchased and listened to Thrice's new album Major-Minor. I'd read an interview about it and was saddened to discover that the two brothers in the band had lost their Father to cancer in the last year, the guitarist had lost his Mother to cancer, and the vocalist's Dad was fighting cancer.
The liner notes brought me to tears with this:
"I’d like to dedicate this record to my beautiful mother, Takako Izumi, who showed me what true love, peace and courage is in her battle with cancer. I love you mom. You taught me everything I know and although you are sorely missed, alas you are a “citizen of some other place” and I look forward to the day we are reunited. お母さん, ありがとう。神様のもとでまた会えること楽しみにしてます。/ 哲平
Ed and I would like to dedicate Major/Minor to our Dad. He’d been unbelievably supportive of our music over the years, was a fixture at local Thrice shows for 13 years, an objective listener and critic of our work, an incredibly helpful business advisor, a constant source of motivation and inspiration, one of the most dedicated and proud Thrice fans that ever existed, and most importantly, was an incredible father and irreplaceable friend. It pains us that he didn’t get to hear this record, and that we won’t be able to see him singing along, misty-eyed and beaming with pride when we look into the crowd at hometown shows, but we will carry his memory into everything we do from here on out.We miss you unfathomably, Daddio. RIP. / RILEY"

I too saw true love, peace and courage and can't ever wipe the memory of her smiling at visitors all day while in incredible pain on her last.
The Violet Burning played at our house last week and it was comforting in an odd way because they were selling an album with her name in it. They had done fund-raising with pre-sales and published people who'd helped them out. So I donated money on behalf of my Mom last fall. Yes she was a friend of independent rock'n'roll and I knew it would make her smile when she found out.

I hope she gets to see pictures of her namesake granddaughter smiling or listen to her laugh. It is beautiful.