Thank you, Mom.

At 2:35pm on March 4, 2010, my mom lost her battle with cancer.

On March 4, 2011, if all goes as planned, the house she struggled to keep will pass to new owners. When I got the closing date call from the escrow agent, I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach.

A few hours helped me to see there's actually a kind of beauty to this. (Circle of life, anyone?) Instead of being the day my mom stopped breathing, this makes March 4 a celebration of my mom's resourcefulness. She fought hard to keep a house over her kids' heads, despite mental illness and other obstacles aplenty; in doing so, she left a legacy that will help pay for her grandkids' college. That this is a gift her kids will celebrate on March 4 seems as much reminder as gift.

It's also fitting because it means we, her kids, will be free--one year to the day--to remember her without having to deal with the painful practicalties of saying goodbye. FYI, folks: It turns out that no matter how much you love your siblings, it will never be easy to say goodbye to your childhood home.

Tomorrow afternoon, I'm going to remember my mom in style. I'm going to take her grandson--the first of many grandchildren, I hope!--somewhere that made her smile so crazy wide I could hardly believe it. Even wider than this:


Today, I'm gonna do my best to not watch the clock too closely, or with too heavy a heart. In the nine years since that "chin shot" was taken, I've had some really amazing adventures. I'm going to try thinking of those adventures--the kind my mom would've loved to have!--instead. I'll be thinking, for example, of kids in a small farm town in Japan, and how, because of my games, they'd understand today if I told them, "I'm sad."

When I started teaching them, they knew only one answer to the question, "How are you?" "I'm fine, thank you, how are you?" By the time I left, they could tell me if they were fine, happy, sad, cold, hot, hungry, sleepy or angry. This was in part thanks to lots of games played with my mood slap cards:


It was also in part thanks to my repeatedly overacting each mood. As the kids grew more comfortable with the different moods, they, too, would throw themselves into dramatic response.

When I look at my mood cards now, I remember the joy I felt the first time a student ran up to my apartment door, jumped up and down with a grin and proclaimed, "I'm happy!"

These are memories for smiles. They're also memories I wouldn't have had but for my mom's faith I could be anything I dreamed.

So what if she later told me I should just think of what I wanted to be and marry someone who did that instead? The foundation was already laid. I believed, thanks to her, I could do just about anything.

Instead of sorrow, I choose to hold gratitude for that faith close to my heart today.

Gratitude . . . and love.