A Great Gift

I received a great gift last night from someone I haven't seen for probably 20 years. We used to work together at Jacks when we were in high school (we went to different schools though). Anyway, I've been totally into Facebook for the last few weeks and as I get new friends, I totally poach their friends...and in the course of that, I stumbled upon this girl, remembered her from Jacks, and sent her a friend request. The gift came when she accepted the friend request and wrote the following...

"Lori, nice to see you on FB. So sorry about your mom. I often talked to her when she was at Mercy and she always lit up when I asked how you were. She was so proud of you and always said what a great mother you are. She said that you were a hard worker and your family always came first. She loved you very much."

Like I said, I haven't seen or spoken to this person in 20 years. I had no idea she worked at Mercy Hospital. I had never run into her in all the times I visited my mother in the hospital. Occasionally my mom would tell me someone asked about me or said they knew me but I never really figured out who she was talking about. There was one former classmate that I would see there and she would ask about my mom but it wasn't this girl. Anyway, because of being completely clueless all these years that she knew my mother and they had spoken about me, I was completely and utterly shocked and instantly broke down in tears as I read those words. I wrote her back and said...

"OMG you have no idea how much that means to me. I am sure I'm not the first child to feel at times like they never do anything right or don't measure up. My mother and I definitely had a complicated relationship but I figured we each knew deep down how the other felt. I just hope I conveyed that to her enough at the end. I loved her very much too and miss her terribly every single day."

The tears that came were mixed tears of both sorrow and joy. Sorrow over the tremendous loss of the mother I loved so much and the hole that will forever leave in my heart. But joy over this bit of insight into how much my mother loved me as well. It was a great gift and one that I will always, always treasure.