Today was the anniversary of my mother's death. It has been 14 years now. I knew when I left Australia that I would never see her again, even though we said, "See you soon". We had both made our peace with it and the last weeks before my departure we had spent a lot of time talking about a lot of things but, it would never be enough. How could it be?

This is her and until this week, I had never seen this photo. My brother @galenkp found it when going through boxes and it wasn't until seeing it I realized how much she looked like my 20 year old niece.<div class="pull-right">https://i.imgur.com/MKYrLlU.jpg</div>

At the airport as I walked through security there was a chance to see her one last time through the glass and she pressed her hand against the pane and I mirrored with mine. Part of me died that day and I knew it in that moment.

I knew that for the rest of my life there would be unanswered questions, information about me and my life that only she held, details that no matter how much I may want to know, the chance to ask was gone. In that moment, the access to a great deal of my personal history was severed and can never be reattached. Again, I have accepted and made my peace with this. What else could I do?

Today my daughter turned 20 months old, Friday the 13th. She will never meet her grandparents on my side of the family as I do not see that we will be able to make it to Australia before my father passes. Even if we were, his mind is close to gone and my daughter is still so young.

She loves her grandparents here though, Mummi and Pappa. She spends a few days every week with them and paints and draws pictures in her *atelier*, the shower cubicle. They play and go for walks and learn all kinds of songs and dances. She loves being there and loves them so much. You can see it in her eyes, my mother's eyes.<div class="pull-right">https://i.imgur.com/12fRbG0.jpg</div>
 

She is a reminder of my mother every day as she has her eyes, deep blue and bright. Mine, are dark brown, my wife's pale. She also has her intensity in them, a gaze that covers more words in silence than I could write in a lifetime. She is going to realize the power she has with them one day. 

She is also going to ask me about her own history, what were her grandparent's like and I do not really know what to answer. My mother was a a woman full of contradictions and although she made many mistakes with her children, I know she would have loved her granddaughter like nothing else in her world. I know she did of my niece. 

These gaps in knowledge I have is a part of the reason I write what I do for my daughter. If something happens to me, I don't want her to feel she has holes in her history that can never be filled, details lost to passing memory. I wish she could have met her grandmother but, it also scares me a little. How similar are they, how much of who she was and who I am does my daughter carry? My mother rarely missed a beat, my daughter is the sharpest person I have met. 

I hope that at least there is the love of a mother in her. She made many mistakes and rarely expressed it well but, she did love all five of her children unconditionally. No matter how poor her actions were at times and all the damage done, I have accepted that she did her best with the tools she had. 

In one of the last conversations we had, we discussed death and the afterlife and knowing what we knew with her cancer, I said to her, "If there is something else, send a sign."<div class="pull-right">https://i.imgur.com/xMaNshS.jpg</div>

My brother called me at about 430 in the morning from Australia and said, "Mum has passed." Not much else was said. After a moment I went outside the back door to get some air and take a moment. It was cold and crisp with clear skies of the deepest blue. I looked up into the darkness and remembering our conversation, I asked in a whisper that made me feel ridiculous; 

*"So Mum, where is that sign?"*

A shooting star bright and flaming shot directly overhead, straight through my focal point. All I could do was laugh. 

I don't remember what she looks like, it is hard to grasp that image directly into my mind but, when I recall a moment that we spent together, when there is context shared, she is there again. She is as clear as day and I can hear her voice.

Taraz
[ a Steemit original ]

<sub>*I owe my brother @galenkp a massive debt that is unrepayable no matter the money as he and his wife took care of so much of the arrangements for my mother and now for my father too. He wrote about [prearranging the funeral for my father](https://steemit.com/love/@galenkp/life-begins-and-ends-and-begins-again), something I can never fully understand and for that, I am grateful in a way and also very sorry. I also stole the image of my mother from his post.*</sub>