Mom lost her battle with The Illness in February, 2016.

It turned out to be a larger foe than anyone realized. The masters of Scientific Care  could not put a name to her illness until they opened her up and found Cancer hiding in all the places tests, scans, and x-rays could not see.

This is not an indictment of the university hospital which took over her care, but an illustration of the relentless march of not only cancer, but life: mom’s end would probably not have come on a cold, February day in 2016 if she was 22 years old. Time takes a lot from our mortal being and mom’s 84 year-old body did not have enough fight left to stave off the surgeries, heart stoppages, and pulmonary emergencies resulting from the treatment necessary to expunge The Illness.

It’s nearly December. Mom’s birthday was last week and Thanksgiving was yesterday. It was the first time in 64 years I didn’t talk to her on either day. It’s hard to say what that means because of the duality of loss. We think we have lost a lot, the most important person in the world, the person who gave us life, and we could easily wonder why and how we should go on with our own life. Despite this loss, we have to see it is the way of the world. Billions of people have lost their mothers, their fathers, the one they loved the most. And billions will endure the exact same loss in their future…no matter what they do.

So: mourn the loss or shrug the shoulder? Or a combination of the two? It’s healthier to look forward and shrug the shoulder if there are more kids, grand-kids, and great-grand-kids looking to a future they see as never-ending. It almost feels good to know the truth and not tell them. Yet.

But it is best to mourn quietly, shrug privately, and know in your heart life will keep doing what it does no matter the choices any individual thinks he or she makes: no one gets away from mortality. We should simply get on the cycle of life and ride best we can, especially if we are next in line, all the while thanking God for the opportunity.

And if we do no harm and help a few people along our route, what more can any God ask of us?

Mom was the best mom, person, and human being I’ve ever known.

My hope is someone will say the same about me, sometime.