I named this blog Missing Mom because the mothers of each of my parents were “missing.” Both of my parents were adoptees. Now that I know something about their original mothers, I know that they would have rather raised their firstborn children had circumstances been supportive of them. I have great empathy for that because I had similar financial obstacles to raising my daughter and instead after the age of 3, she was raised by her father and step-mother. These things do pass down family lines. I’ve seen the truth of that in my own family.

However, my mom managed to remain in my life and it is the minor miracle of my life that I was not surrendered to adoption as well. She was an unwed teenage mother but managed to be married by the day I was born. I have fond memories of my mom on Sunday mornings. She was devotedly religious all of her life. My dad never went to church with us – the valid excuse was because he worked shifts, sometimes two shifts in a row in a refinery. He also was raised in the Church of Christ by his adoptive parents. My parents married in that church, I’m certain his parents insisted on that.

Sometimes on Sundays, if we had spent the weekend with my dad’s adoptive parents, they would bring us home and my dad’s adoptive mother, who we called Granny, would have contentious kitchen table discussions about religion with my mom. My mom raised us in the Episcopal church she had been raised in. Every Sunday, we got dressed up in our finest and went to church with her. After we (as their children) had left our family home and gone our separate ways, my dad started going to church with my mom to “keep her company.” Eventually, I believe he was as truly Episcopalian as anyone not born into it could be and I went to church with him a few times after my mom died.

Mothers are simply on my mind this morning. I read recently that there are two kinds of people in this world – women and the children of women. Every human being was born of a woman (until someone starts cloning us). My apologies to the UK for missing their own holiday by one week. I had seen it on our calendar but this morning it was on my mind. I listen to music by Tim Janis on youtube while doing my blood pressure checks. He has some offerings that include hymns. I started thinking I could acknowledge Sundays by choosing one of those with hymns (lyrics are not included but the tunes are very familiar to me having been raised with them) once a week. At the wedding rehearsal dinner for me and my husband, my mom is caught on video expressing her love of religious music – specifically Amazing Grace. It is an amazing grace I wasn’t adopted as well.

For whatever reason, this song seemed appropriate . . .

I learned about my mother’s death on a Sunday morning. She was a composer and a musician. She had intended to play one of her compositions in church that morning, of course, it didn’t happen. She was gone, never to be seen by me again in this life. No wonder she would be on my mind today.