I just returned from a special day with my mom.

Driving home it was 111 degrees in my car, but I had goosebumps on my skin while listening to this song.

It is our song – no doubt.

We both cried the first time we saw this scene in a local movie theater.  For different reasons I thought at the time, but now I’m not so sure.

I had chosen the soundtrack for the car ride today as it was our special mother-daughter day.

She mentioned Dancing Queen and how she related to it and to the part of the movie when Meryl Streep said “I used to have fun.”

She told me one day I would understand.

I reminded her that ‘one day’ had come.

I look back now at the days before I was a mother.  When I was the Dancing Queen – young and, okay, not so sweet.  But God did I live!

I know she did too.

She was young and beautiful and had hopes and dreams.

I do understand.

I keep catching up to points in her life all the time – and all the while she’s having new experiences that ‘one day’ I’ll understand.

“Do I really see what’s in her mind
Each time I think I’m close to knowing
She keeps on growing
Slipping through my fingers all the time”

_________________

I wonder if my mom knows how much she still means to me.

I watched her today, on a spa table.

She was on her back, eyes closed – golden red hair splayed out around her and she looked … so beautiful.

“Slipping through my fingers all the time
I try to capture every minute
The feeling in it …”

I said nothing for a while – just stared at her.

This woman who was my entire world when I was that school girl.

She lay there, very still, lit by artificial light – as if she were no longer alive.

I couldn’t bear the thought of it.

“You’ll make a beautiful corpse.” I said.

She smiled.

We have a wicked sense of humor.

“Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture
And save it from the funny tricks of time
Slipping through my fingers
Slipping through my fingers all the time”

The thing about becoming a mother, is that it’s the exact moment we realize how much our own mothers love us! 

Then in necessary irony, the universe shifts the pull of gravity from her to our own children.

But as my child becomes a man, I find an unmistakable pull back to the woman who once had my whole heart.

Today I wanted to soak up every second I had with her – catching glimpses of the woman who once sat brushing my hair, making my porridge, stroking my forehead.

“Sleep in our eyes, her and me at the breakfast table
Barely awake, I let precious time go by
Then when she’s gone, there’s that odd melancholy feeling
And a sense of guilt I can’t deny”

As I dropped her off home –  we both said our I love you’s and good-bye’s …  I suddenly wanted to never say good-bye.

I wanted my head in her lap as she stroked my forehead  – I wanted to see her dance and to talk about her hopes and dreams.

She got out of the car and turned and waved …

“Waving goodbye with an absent-minded smile
I watch her go with a surge of that well-known sadness”

Slipping through my fingers all the time.