“Hello?” I shouted, stepping through the front door of my parents’ house, shaking the snow off my boots. It felt like someone was there, even though I knew there wasn’t. With my dad in Texas for the winter, I came to check up on the house every so often—collect the mail, adjust the thermostat, make sure the winter storms hadn’t caused any damage. This was just a quick stop before I went home to celebrate my 29th wedding anniversary with my husband, Alan.
I didn’t feel much like celebrating. Mom had passed away just after our anniversary one year ago. I kept thinking back to the last phone call I got from her. “Happy Anniversary!” she said. “Mom loves you both so much!”
I wasn’t surprised she remembered. It was like she had some kind of internal “mom calendar” to recall every special occasion of family and friends, even at the age of 72. When she died, I tried to remind myself that God had blessed her with a long, happy life, but that didn’t make it any easier to go on without her.
I walked into the kitchen, mindlessly opening and closing the freezer door, half-expecting to see Mom standing at the counter, cutting up a tray of her famous chocolate-chip cookie bars. But no. Mom was gone.
The house was so cold. I turned up the heat and then sat at the roll-top desk in the living room. Lined up across the top were family photos—graduations, weddings, holidays. “I never dreamed this big,” Mom always said at our celebrations. “That life could be this wonderful.”
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and stood up. That’s when I noticed something right by my foot. A small white card lying face down on the bright blue carpet.
That’s weird, I thought. I’d been here just last week and hadn’t seen any clutter on the desk. Where had it fallen from? I bent over, picked it up, and flipped it over.
Three words were printed on the card in bright pink script: “Mom loves you.”
I couldn’t wait to show Alan. Just like I’d never forget Mom, we hadn’t been forgotten either.
