For me, the moment of my mother's death was an epiphany, an intuitive leap in understanding achieved at a time when I thought there would be only sadness and loss.

In five years of watching Mother's slow, steady decline toward death, I had thought often of what it would be like when she was gone — the emotional intensity associated with losing the one who gave me life, the sadness at no longer being able to sit in her presence, and the relief in knowing that her earthbound struggle with a stroke-crippled body was finally over.

Mother died in February at the age of 87; today marks the first celebration of Mother's Day without her.

By all outward appearances, Mother led a common, unremarkable life. She grew up the oldest of eight children in a not-so-prosperous farm family in western Ohio. She graduated from high school and took a job as a typesetter at a small printing company, earning 10 cents an hour. She married my father — a factory worker-turned baker who left school after the eighth grade — and together they raised a large family. She was widowed unexpectedly at age 60, traveled a bit following her husband's death, remarried at age 75, and died a dozen years later.

But the ordinary circumstances of her life belie her true nature, for Mother was an extraordinary woman whose greatness lay in her ability to appreciate each day for what it was and to pass that appreciation on to those around her.

It was through Mother that I came to understand the preciousness of everyday life: As a child, she knelt with me in prayer. Standing beside me at the kitchen stove, she shared her love of cooking. Doing homework under her watchful eye, I came to know the joy of learning. Preserving vegetables from our garden, she taught me frugality and hard work. And resting with her after a day's work, I discovered the pleasures of a warm summer evening.

But it was in death that she shared her greatest gift, for in dying she showed me how to live.

A lifelong learner who drew lessons from life itself, Mother shared how being with Dad when he died took away her own fear of death. "His death was so peaceful and serene," she wrote in a final letter to her family, opened on the occasion of her own death. "When I think about dying, I am at peace. ¿The greatest gift I can wish for you is a happy death," she wrote.

Lying on her deathbed at the nursing home, she hung for two days between life and death, as her children and grandchildren came to say good-bye. Labored breathing marked her presence in the room, and as family members took turns sitting at her side, she willed herself back to us, toward life, mouthing a dry kiss or stirring slightly as we squeezed her hand.

As she lay there dying, her brow furrowed at times. Was she being beckoned from afar? Was her distant gaze fixed on something beyond our knowing?

Finally, in the hour before sunrise, she left us, seemingly eager to embrace whatever lie ahead.

The ultimate teacher, Mother showed me how to live a good life; in dying, she shared another lesson in life's long journey.

To all women who nurture and care for others, have a blessed and happy Mother's Day.

Linda K. Schmitmeyer is a freelance writer living in Middlesex Township. Her e-mail address is lks260@zoominternet.net.