So Fresh To God

My mom died a month ago. I have so much sadness inside regarding that, and I'm not even sure how to express it. One saying that keeps running around in my head is this:

"I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing, when they, who are so fresh from God, love us." Charles Dickens

What grabs me is the "so fresh from God" part. That certainly describes the gift of birth - but what about death? "So fresh to God" is more apropos there. I feel that she is now fresh to God; it's as if I can still feel her here, and yet feel her gone as well.

Soon I will no longer feel her here. I look at some of the things I use in my daily life. Just today I used a notepad which she had put in my stocking last year. I just finished a bottle of water from a case she had bought for me before she went into the hospital. One day soon, those things will all be gone and I'll no longer have much tangible evidence of her existence - only memories.

I can remember sitting with her that last night at the hospital. I held one of her hands, and my dad held the other. Every once in awhile she would come out of her morphine stupor and say "Oh Pam" or "Oh John." Sometimes she would simply wake up and say "I love you." I can remember her voice, heavy with drugs. But will I remember it in a month? In a year? I hope so, because my greatest fear is that I'll begin to forget those things that were so clearly a part of her: her voice. Her eyes. Her laugh.

I don't want to forget. I want to hold on for dear life.