Dec. 4, 1997 will remain indelible in my memory.

One year has passed since I took the longest trip of my life. Four seasons have given birth since the death of my mother.

What has time healed? My first inclination is to say "nothing." I still mourn the void created in my life with her departure. That culprit grief comes at me in rushes and knocks the wind out of my sails when I least expect it.

The best I can hope for in the face of these assaults of bereavement is that I am in a space to brave the wave alone.

One year has passed, the longest year of my life. What has time healed? It has forced me to make friends with my own mortality. Time has healed my desire to succumb to the frenetic pace that used to rule my life like an iron fist.

I've slowed down a lot. Being the living element of my mother's legacy has prompted me to guide my life to reflect more of her principles.

She believed in community. She was a friend to many and an enemy to none. She was selfless in the face of much selfishness.

She loved her family and she considered her children to be her true wealth in life. She had a much-recognized integrity.

My mother's death has also taught me the importance of personal growth. I always thought that I would return to Africa and properly reclaim it as my home.

My loss showed me that I had to redefine the role my motherland would have in my life and grieve the loss of my youthful and idyllic connection to my rural roots.

I always considered my true home to be where my parents and family lived. My mother now lives in memory only and I realize that I can really make my home anywhere. I've got my own family to cultivate.

I always thought I knew what it felt like to persevere. After all, I persevered through political detention, moving to a new country, mastering a new language and profession. I came to Canada as a new immigrant only 20 years ago and managed to gain respectability and success in a country that can be hostile and combative to minority "outsiders."

All of my hard-won accomplishments in the face of adversity never prepared me for the kind of perseverance I would need to overcome the loss of a soul that so profoundly shaped my life.

My mother's passing exposed me to my father's fragility. I wasn't ready to accept that my seemingly immortal caregiver now needed a caretaker. The change in our relationship has brought us closer and I have a better understanding of an emotional depth I never knew my father had.

On the first anniversary of my greatest loss yet, I know that the wisdom that comes from such an experience is for me a lesson learned too soon. I still miss you, Josephine.