I was four years old when my mother died, and because she too was so young, I was told she went to heaven to be an Angel.  My Dad made her into a perfect person right away.  I never heard him speak of any flaws or indiscretions.  She was forever an Angel.

It’s hard growing up with an Angel as your role model.  I was always judged by what my mother would have said, done and been.  Forever perfect, she was portrayed.

Through the years I’ve heard plenty of testimonies from friends who knew her well.  They almost all say the same thing…she was beautiful, smart, funny and very kind.  Not one hint to a mistake, bad temper or habit that needed to break.  Even her friends from high school wrote beautiful things about her in her yearbook.  Oh, how I have judged myself harshly in comparison of her light.

My Auntie Sue understood all of this.  She would try to tell me stories about my mother and share adventures the two of them had shared.  She would always tell me, “Your mother had her ways,” but, she never got around to telling me what “her ways” were.  Maybe Auntie Sue was giving me a break, a glimmer of hope, that it is ok to be human.
I’ve long since accepted the fact that I am truly human, and that probably my mother was too.  No one will mistake me for a ‘forever angel’ when I am gone….and that’s  perfectly alright with me.