Happy Mother's Day In Heaven To My Mother, Ulla
I lit a candle for her in Church today, and I cried.
I wrote this on Facebook a few years ago:
My mother, Ulla, died August 19, of 1999, suddenly and totally unexpectedly, in her apartment in Sweden, just back, hours earlier, from a three week trip to New York to see us.
My heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
The next 20 years were frankly...very hard.
Grief is a real beast, I tell you. Many of you know this. How out-of-body everything is, after this moment when you lose a loved one. How your heart never feels the same.
My mother's voice was the only voice I knew that I completely understood. She alone could comfort me—just by the sound of her voice. She had a volcanic temper and a deep, crazy laugh.
One time we went to Barbados to visit her dance teacher, a man named Jimmie, and she decided we should bring a full size pine tree from Sweden as a gift, since they didn't have Christmas trees in Barbados.
I can still see it emerging on the conveyor belt, half wrapped in a burlap sack...
There were many get-rich-quick schemes over the years, including a gaspacho stand, and blueberry jam made from a berry that was blue alright, but was some kind of failed third cousin to the blueberry. Bitter and strange tasting. (“Odon,” for those from Sweden who may read this.)
Another was a decorative pine cone business, which resulted in a kitchen fire that brought firemen to our small apartment. We were baking them, somehow.
Then there were the bird cages we dragged back from Tunisia. Twice she got us to the Sahara desert to see the stars--on a nurse's salary. We took off to a "paradise island" that wasn't where it was supposed to be on the map and we wound up homeless at nightfall in Sfax, begging the police for shelter. Mom loved North Africa, South Africa, and Haiti. In Haiti, she and her mother took off on a motorcycle to the hills because they heard there was going to be a voodoo ceremony, which sounded like a good idea to them both.
She swam out to save a drowning man in Cuba in shark infested waters when everybody else stood on the beach, watching and shaking their heads. She did this again in Barbados--a guy who fell off our boat, drunk on rum.
She invited Yusuf, a man from Tunisia who she'd befriended, to our home in Örebro to celebrate Christmas one year. He was in a wheelchair, and radiated kindness. Mom said he was “a man.” She only ever said about one other man I can recall.
Oh, and there was the time when we still lived in New York when she told us to put our bathing suits on so we could splash around on Broadway in a massive thunderstorm.
This was how her mind worked.
I wondered if I would ever feel ok again, after she died.
I felt "ok" again but I never felt safe again.
My mother believed deeply in having fun. She wanted to go to Banditos in the East Village for Margharitas because of the colored plastic monkeys they put in the drinks. "Don't throw them out girls!" she'd cry. I STILL have them.
The most memorable thing she ever said to me was this: It was about 6 months before she died, we were in her kitchen, in Sweden. She was setting her hair. And she said: "The only thing you will ever really regret in life are the times you did not show enough love."
And still, I make this mistake, every day.
A few weeks ago, I was on the phone with a friend (John B. Wells) and he suddenly said: "Do you know somebody named… Ulla...who was a nurse?"
I fell silent.
"Yes. Why?"
His wife Brendi had come in to the kitchen, and encountered my mother.
"Hi, I'm Ulla!" Mom said to Brendi, in their kitchen in Texas. She was in her Red Cross nurse's uniform from the 1950s.
She had a message, sent through my friend's wife, to him, to me.
The message was that everything was fine.
Happy Mother’s Day in Heaven Mom.
You’d be so proud of your grandson if you could see him now.
Celia, what a beautiful tribute to Mom. I miss her everyday. You capture her essence here exactly. She was SO MUCH, she encompassed so much adventure and so much courage. Best we can do is honor this rich legacy. Thank you for writing these words.
My mom passed away midday on Mother’s Day in 2021. I had to see her outside of the room she was in at a skilled nursing facility, through the sliding glass door of the room she was in. She had been there for a couple of weeks, after a 5 day hospital stay. Because of the
Covid BS I couldn’t go in the building.
I knew she was dying at the hospital…I could tell. I sent my brothers and my two nieces (her granddaughters) to see her at the hospital, because we could go in there if we wore a mask. It was to really to be able for all of us to be with her in the final days of her life.
I went to visit her at 11AM on Mother’s Day, at the skilled nursing facility. I had to talk to her via my phone cause she was too weak to get out of bed and come to the window. I did most off the talking, sang her some songs, told her that it was ok to go find my Dad, (her husband of 30 years who died in 1982 at 57) and her Mom and Dad. I told her to go ‘whoop it up with Dorsey” (my Dad). I told her by name, every family member loved her, and sang her another song. Then I said I would talk to her tomorrow, said I loved her, and she whispered, “I love you too” back.
In less than an hour I got a call from the facility that she had passed away.
Now three years later I feel her around me frequently. We both loved all kinds of music, and I when I hear certain songs that remind me of her I know she fluttering about! Also I may see something that also reminds me of her and know that’s she’s around.
I celebrated the third anniversary of her death on Thursday. I went to Mission San Diego de Alcalá, and bought a 7 day votive candle to be put up at the altar and had a prayer novena said for her at the Mother’s Day Mass today. She had been the President and member of the Mission Choir at The Mission for many years. We could not hold a funeral Mass in the Church because the lovely Diocese of San Diego was not allowing masses or gatherings inside any churches, only outdoor services.
We had our own memorial service in July for her, at a Women’s Club with a pianist and a soloist, a Mexican food buffet lunch, and no masks were required!