Beltane Summer Moon
Sometimes these moments reach out, grab a part of you unexpectedly. Evoke a feeling long forgotten. In unusual places. Kate and I went to see How to Train Your Dragon 2, better than the first installment and worth seeing for any proud Scandinavian. It’s a touching story, dramatic and funny by turns with a quality of animation that shows how far we’ve come since Bugs Bunny and Woody Woodpecker. If you have a kid in your life, see it. If you have a kid left in your heart, see it.
Here’s what got me. Spoiler alert. Hiccup, the lead character, a boy just grown into young manhood (since his youth in the first picture) meets a mystery figure who loves and helps dragons, just like he does. The surprise is that she’s his mother, thought dead. There was a scene where this animated mother reached out and hugged her 20 year old boy for the first time since he was in the cradle.
A sudden wave of longing swept over me. For a second it was my mother, met again, reaching her hand out, a hug, the smell of her hair. The feeling rose from somewhere long forgotten. To be hugged by my mother. I miss it. Still. At 67 and her having been dead for 
50 years this October. It reminded me of the hole I’ve lived around, never filled since her death and of the simple joys not possible for all those years.
It’s not regret nor nostalgia nor something I even wish for, just a hole, the hole that death leaves. And yet in its own way it was affirming. I loved my mother and I know she loved me. I know, if we found ourselves together, even over this long span of years, that she would hug me and caress my cheek. Kiss me. Tell me she was proud of me. That was her way. And, thankfully, I’m sure she would be proud of me.
