Happy Birthday, Margaret

Today is my mother's birthday. She would be 80. Wow. It's hard to realize that 6 years have passed since she died, very suddenly one Sat. morning. I was impatient with her the night before; she was fussing about our plans for the next day, and I was trying to cook dinner - I needed her to get OFF THE PHONE! My last words: "I'll talk to you tomorrow when we get home, mom. Good-bye." I don't feel guilty about that; we had lots of conversations like that, so what was one more. I truly don't feel guilty about anything in regards to my life with her; I just wish...
but wishes don't come true, and you can't change the past. You don't get too many second choices to undo the seemingly harmless things that come back to bite you in the rear. I was a good daughter, and I lay my head down at night knowing that, but I wish...
I hope that Joe Beam is right, that in the hereafter she is looking "down" on my life and knows how I feel about the whole "relationship" thing. I've made peace with a lot of junk and have grown amazingly stronger because of how she raised me.
I hope that when people hear me talk about my mom, that I honor her and leave the other stuff for me and me alone. She gave me all she had and then some, and for that alone I love her.
In case you didn't know her, she was artistic, beautiful, crafty, diligent, extravagant, faithful, generous, hospitable, inquisitive, jovial, kind, loving, menacing, neurotic, open, petulant, quizical, rebellious, smart, talkative, understanding (sometimes!), verbal, will-full, x-troverted, and zealous.
Happy birthday, Mom.