It was a year ago this week that I lost my Mother. They say that time will ease the pain, and I am so hoping that is the truth. However, I pretty much know that the hole in my heart will be felt for the remainder of my life. I am coping much better, but there have been so many “adjustments” that have had to be made in my day to day life. There’s one that has been harder to accept than others, and that was the daily phone call that I made to my Mama. No matter which part of the country I was in, I always made it a point to “check in.”

Even in the later stages of her disease, when thought process and memory became even more of an issue, she seemed to remember that I would be calling. We would talk about everything and anything…and laugh a lot. At the end of each call, when it came time to say good-bye, Mother would thank me for calling. She would always comment that not all children would call their parents on a daily basis, and she appreciated it.  I would always tell her that I did not call for her and Daddy, but rather, I called for me…that I needed to hear their voices.

I had a dear friend that lost her Mom a number of years ago. During one of our conversations, as she was describing her loss, she said, “there’s no one to call now.” I asked, “What do you mean?” She shared that whenever she went on a trip, she would call to say goodbye, and then upon returning, she would call to say she had made it back home safely. This was just one example of the calls that she made to her mother on a regular basis. I empathized with her, but did not truly understand the depth of that particular loss, until I experienced that same loss myself. Now, I still call my father, but it is not the same. My Mama was the “talker.”

Those of you who have parents who are still living, if you can’t visit them, please give them the gift of hearing your voice on the phone. How much time would it take? Five minutes? And what a difference those five minutes would make in their lives! Believe me, there will come a time when you would give everything to just pick up the phone, and hear their voice. What I would not give for just one more phone call…Won’t you join me? Just for this week…