Missing Mom

A year ago today in the wee small hours of the morning, Virginia Bates Kraen took her last breath in this life and went back home -- to her husband Herman, her parents, Rose and Claude, her two sisters, Alice and Thelma and three brothers, Lyle, Dayle and Kink. They had all gone before her, and she was ready to go too. It was reunion time in heaven.

Her six girls and 15 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren were not ready for her to go - after all, Mom was the hub of the wheel, the strong glue, the safety pin --that held her far-flung family all together. But, there's only so much a worn-out body can take before it says, "no more," and Mom came to that point in her 88th year on Our Lady of Fatima Day just after 1:00 am.

As I look back on this first year without Mom in our midst, it amazes me how fast the time has gone and how many significant happenings occurred. In the Kraen family, there have been 3 retirements, two engagements, three weddings, one baby, three cross-state moves, three graduations, several new jobs, and an honorable discharge from the Marines. There have been trips made to New York City, Lake Tahoe, Denver, Montenegro, Serbia, Las Vegas, Argentina, Connecticut, and Hawaii, to name a few.

It seems appropriate that today, May 13th, 2009, Emily signed the papers to buy Mom's house from Aunt Judy. The other day when I picked Taidje and Orion up after school, Orion (who just turned 7) said, "You know Grandma Bumpy, we won't need any of Great-Grandma's things to remind us of her, because we will be living in her house and that will help us always remember her." What Orion didn't realize is that she is also living within each of us --as close as a thought -- or a smell of Estee Lauder perfume or the gooey, carmelly taste of sticky buns, or the sound of a Strauss waltz or a grandboy practicing a loud burp like Great Grandma taught him.

Mom called Emily in the afternoon of April 30th last year, the day before she went to the hospital the last time. Mom knew Emily had stayed home from work that day because Oggy was sick. Molly had sent Mom a box of goodies from Hawaii (usually good Hawaiian coffee and macadamia nut and chocolate candy). She asked Em if she could come over right away because the mailman had left the box on the porch and some of the squirrels (that Mom had fed for years) had smelled those nuts in the box and were attacking it. They were chewing the corner out of the box and Mom couldn't reach down to get it. Emily's last good memory of her Grandma was her standing behind the screen door supported by her red walker giving that squirrel heck for chewing on her box of nuts! What a better memory could you have than that?

We miss you Mom. See you before you know it!

Love, Jolyn