Trees and grief

It's been seven months since my mother passed away; yet the grief feels worse now than on the day she died.  The holiday season was a challenge for me this year, far more of one than I anticipated it might be.  My temper has been shorter than usual the past few months; not good, even knowing that I'm not the most patient woman in the world.  To that end I've been doing a grief counseling program online through our church.  

While logically I know Mom is in a far better place, I think much of my current misery includes feeling like we didn't have the entertaining screwball she could be (singing songs like "Raggmopp" at the drop of a hat, or telling stories about her youth and of herself and Dad when they first met) for more of her 84+ years.  Mom was sadly impacted by dementia long before she moved into the facility where she spent the last 5 1/2 years of her life.  I've wondered occasionally whether my parents' move away from their familiar surroundings and culture in the Northeast to a Southern state they barely knew, where they didn't have many friends, exacerbated her mental demise.

Today hubby is working on one of the few "Honey Do" list items he didn't get to while off for a month; cutting down a diseased pink dogwood tree in our front yard.  Sadly, it does need to be removed (dogwoods are one of my favorite trees, and were my mom's as well), but it reminded me of a moment that happened just after my ninth birthday.  The lot beside our house had just become a construction site of the home for our neighbors.  Mom & Margaret were chatting outside and Mom mentioned there is a beautiful dogwood tree on their property in the hopes that they wouldn't cut it down.  Margaret hadn't yet noticed it, but acknowledged her own fondness for dogwoods, then asked which tree it was (it wasn't blooming yet, this being March in Connecticut!)  As I recall, I scurried down the hill between our two houses and stood under the tree in question so there would be no doubt as to which one to keep.  Margaret ensured that her husband and the work crews never touched that tree.  Her family no longer lives there, but the last time I visited New Fairfield in 2021, the tree appeared to still be standing.  😹  I'd like to think that Mom and Margaret are still enjoying that tree from Heaven.