Regrets, I Have None

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So my friend Dana recently posted an interesting query on her blog: "What event/events have occurred in your life that have shaped who you are today?"

That's a question that I don't even need to think to respond to.

One thing always comes to mind.

Mom.

The death of my mother has shaped my life in ways that are both obvious and very subtle. Naturally had her death not occurred, I wouldn't be where I am, how I am, or who I am. Not without taking significant personality and character traits from my person.

Had my mother not died when I was so young, I never would have been raised by my grandmother, who was the strongest woman I've ever had the honor of knowing. Was she perfect? Hardly. She smoked when I was little. She spoiled me rotten. Gave hospital orderlies the finger after she had a stroke when I was ten. She laughed when she saw people trip or hurt themselves. She once threw a television remote at me for threatening to change the channel, and once, she forgot to lock the door when Grandpa came to visit.

The scars this woman inflicted on my soul are rough and deep.

And I wouldn't trade them for anything.

I learned to laugh at myself and at the world. That pain can be healed, and abuse can be used for the benefit of others. That a person is only as good as the people whose lives they change. That nothing smells better than fresh baked pie with apples stolen from a neighbors tree.

I learned the three most important things in this world were family, love and God.

The memories of my mother's death seem more or less dreams. Unfamiliar sights and sounds that come and go with mixed colors and flashes of light. I can never determine if they are real memories, or an overactive imagination mixed with too many stories from family members who didn't know any better, or were possibly looking for the truth themselves.

But I remember that in her last moments in life, she reached her arms across the front of the dashboard in our car - broken glass raining in on us both - to sheild me from harm.

Likewise, my Grandmother, in her last words for me -"Take care of the family. Marry Matt. Find God," - were to shield me from the world. Giving me a purpose in life, a soft place to land, and knowledge that this isn't the end. That those who I loved didn't die in vain. That they had a purpose, lived it, served it, fulfilled it, and were called home.

And that I too have a purpose. A life. I am myself because of this. Because of the death that surrounded me. The darkness that has at times engulfed me. And I would disgrace their names to regret those dark days. Those empty nights wondering why I was left without a mother. Wondering why so many times I was left asking, "Why?"

The death and the darkness has shaped me.

Into a light for others.