Mother's Day...

As Mother's Day approaches, so many thoughts and feelings overtake me. I miss my mother every day, and cannot believe that it has been 3 years since her passing. 

My mom was around to know that I had found my true happiness, but my move to Iowa was not easy on her at all. At 37 years old I had never lived further than 5 miles from my parents. She had dealt with a lifetime of ailments beginning with Polio as a child, and culminating with severe TMJ which lead to a surgery involving failed implants, and several long and horrific surgeries to follow in attempts to repair the damage. None of them were able to fix what had been destroyed, and she spent every moment of her life from that point in pain that most of us cannot even begin to imagine. 

She was however happy for me. She could tell that my life and my health had taken huge turns in a positive direction thanks to E. I was crushed when my mom passed, so very close to Mother's Day, and one of the most painful parts was that she would never meet the woman who would become her daughter-in-law.

Now as the next chapter of my life is about to begin with the birth of my daughter, those same feelings of remorse, disappointment, and loss bubble to the surface as I think about the fact that my daughter will never know her grandma Jovina. 

Almost without fail people called my mother either Jo or Jo Jo. It is here and now that I announce that my daughter's middle name will be Jo, in honor of her grandmother who would have loved her so well and spoiled her so much. 

As far as her first name, for that you will just have to wait...

~Father Finally