Valentine's Day....Re-Membering

It was Feb. 16, 2000. My Mother died. It was two days after Valentine’s Day.

For her Valentine gift, my older brother brought her a 2 ft. wide and 3 ft. tall heart-shaped balloon. It had a smiling face, corrugated legs and flat cardboard feet. It stood in the corner, next to her chair. She was already half-ascended. The heart was better able to stand and walk than she. It float-walked on its own. She, her spirit, was wrestling to leave.

She insisted on walking; so sure she could; so sure she was. She wasn’t. She couldn’t. And it was floating.

She was agitated. She needed us to lift and hold her up, for she so desperately wanted to walk. "Just one more step", she insisted. That bed sore haunting her, propelling her onward. Peaches, her nurse, and I, each under an arm, attempting to lift her up as she floated in her own way like a swaying drunken woman. Finally she made it! She was standing.

But she couldn’t lift a foot. Her foot heavy; the heart-shaped balloon so light. Were it not for it’s corrugated feet it would have made its lift off. I asked her, "Mom, are you ready to sit again?" "No!", she insisted firmly, while her eyes remained closed, her body dangling on our arms. "Just one more step first".

I never saw her foot move. She was sure it had and said, "Okay". As we lowered her into her chair, I looked up. There to greet my glance was the Valentine’s Day balloon smiling at me.