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I lost my mommy this week. I think I'm just going to make a thread where I can collect some thoughts about it all. She was a complicated woman, but she was kind to strangers in a way you rarely see. 1/?
Every so often if a friend or church member was in hospice, she would visit as if they were family. Along the way she always managed to make a friend of someone else who was also dying in the hospice center.
She would talk with them, learn their stories, bring them little presents and flowers. It was an amazing gift she had.
She also adopted other people's people as her own. She cared for the elderly parents of friends and acquaintances and knew everyone's name. Everyone. It was amazing to sit with her and have her say "remember so and so who was the sister of the lady that lived down the street?"
She was a savant with children. She ran an in-home daycare for most of my life and I've never seen someone teach toddlers like she did. She was an extra mom to countless children. I'll never know how many. I can't keep track, but she knew every single name. Every one.
She loved her church. I have a lot of feelings about churches these days, but I am thankful that she had a place where she belonged and that people loved her. She was a greeter and it was probably her favorite job she ever had. I think she knew all of those names too.
She also had her "Ya Yas" - the group of women who would invade our kitchen weekly for much of my teenage and college years. The roar of their laughter could be heard for blocks. They are all as shattered as I am at her loss, but good god did we have fun.
She gave me three of the best siblings a gal could ask for. We've held each other together through a really tough couple years and I am deeply thankful for them. Kolin, Candace and Keenan Kline: you mess with one you mess with all.
But my mommy also had her demons. She always struggled with her mental health, but she was diagnosed with Parkinson's a few years back and it was a toxic mix of physical and mental pain that she couldn't overcome.
She will be missed as she was already missed - her illnesses took her from us a long time ago and I guess I'm just thankful that she isn't in pain anymore. I hope she has found the peace she was searching for. I will try to find it, here, too.
I'll remember the good things, how she loved strangers and how we got her to dance with us on stage at my sister's graduation. I'll remember how happy she was when she became a Nana and how much she loved that baby boy.
Hold your people tight, everyone. And love a stranger in her honor. Her name was Katherine Farrell Kline and she will me missed. Fin.
