I feel very unusual today, if I’m being completely honest. It was only yesterday that I wrote my thoughts on the beauty of flowers, and how fitting it seemed to offer them as comfort, when someone experiences the loss of a loved one. What I didn’t realize was that the flowers I enjoyed smelling and capturing pictures of recently, seemed to have been meant for myself.

My daughter texted me yesterday, sending Father’s Day greetings for my hubby. In passing, she mentioned the death of my foster mother, assuming that I’d already been aware. I was not!

Our relationship was tenuous at best ever since my divorce, nearly 20 years ago, and we hadn’t spoken for nearly 10 years. Setting aside my feelings of hurt, anger and confusion, over the things done and said to me, by the family as a whole, my heart still aches!

Whatever hurt or wrong done, she was really the only woman I considered my mother, in that sense. She was the only one who reached for me in the darkness, when I was so very lost. She fought for me, supported me and believed in me when no one else did.

Familial emotions are foreign to me, as my own birth mother was never drawn to care for her own children, being so lost in her own memories and hurts. Though I’ve learned to love her for the sake of healing and walking on, I never cried like this when she died. Honestly, I think I simply felt sorry for her empty life, more than anything else.

I lived with my foster mother, father and three brothers from the time I was 15 until I graduated from high school and moved out on my own. She was loved deeply by my daughters, as well as all the rest of the grandchildren in her life.

What I wish to remember of her is how much she loved God. Stella Guenther was the woman who did the softening in my heart, tilling the dry soil of my soul, allowing God to do the rest.

Rest well mom… I’ll see you on the other side!