Mom's Legacy

Christmas is my favorite time of year. The tree, lights, music, movies, all fill my heart with such joy and thankfulness, that my cup usually runs over.
But not this year. This year, my heart is filled with grief because I lost my Mom again.
Three weeks ago today, I watched her being wheeled into an ambulance in the pouring rain, clutching her bunny, wrapped in blankets against the wet and cold. I knew she would never return home and grief clutched my heart.
I knew I couldn't take care of her, keep her safe, watch her day and night. My head could wrap around all this, but my heart just can't.
I feel her presence everywhere in this house. It's like she left a part of herself here. Today, I finally went into her bedroom. Before today, I just walked in to get something and walked right back out. But today, I got her coats off the coat rack and hung them up in her closet. Then I took her quilt off her bed, then her blankets and finally her sheets and I washed the sheets.
I found a lot of old photo albums, too, and went through a couple until I just couldn't any longer. Memories of being raised on the farm near Colfax, birthday parties with Jeff and Donny and Marla and Trudy and Lori, as well as Christmas dinners with the family china, silverware, Fostoria glassware, flooded my whole soul and made my missing Mom even worse to the point where I just had to stop.
This is weird because Mom is still in Battle Ground at the Alzheimer's place - I just can't say nursing home. Her physical body is there, but my real Mom is gone. I haven't gone down to see her all week. I've made every excuse I can think of not to make that drive. Not feeling well, frosty slick roads, fog, anything I could think of not to go. I am ashamed of myself for not going, but I hate to see Mom like this.
My head tells me that Mom doesn't know any better, that she doesn't know where she is, that she doesn't know if I visit or not, but my heart knows. I know where she is, that she isn't eating well, that they aren't keeping her as clean as I used to, that they don't stop in the afternoon to give her milk and cookies, her favorite snack. And how I've come to hate this.
And I just can't figure out why God is doing this. Why is He letting Mom be in this awful place? Why isn't He answering my prayer of taking her Home? When I see Him, we are having a very long conversation.
Later on tonight, I will make Mom's bed with clean, crisp sheets, letting the freshness flow through her bedroom, maybe washing part of Mom's scent away.
I feel like I'm on a ship lost at sea, with no direction, no purpose in life. My purpose for so long has been to give Mom everything that she has given me.
A friend reminded me of something the other day. I am Mom's legacy. I am her daughter, her flesh and blood, and I learned everything I know from her. It's a big responsibility to be someone's legacy and to be my Mom's legacy - wow. It made me realize I have a lot to do. I have to carry on all the things she taught me. And although I can't carry them on to any Ousley children, I can share what I've learned with others and I really look forward to that. I look forward to saying, "My Mom taught me how to do that."
Maybe that's what God is waiting for. Maybe He's waiting for me to realize that I have this legacy, this responsibility to share Mom's legacy.
So perhaps instead of grieving, I will begin to share Mom's legacy in any way I can. I will rejoice in all the things Mom has given me over the years.
My head can say that, now I have to convince my heart.