I Wasn't With Her

I wasn't with her when she died.  Everyone else in the family was there that day, not me.  I received the call and was booked out early the next morning.  I know that God numbers our days, but part of me thinks that my mother chose the exact moment she would die.  I know those two statements are contradictory.  I don't think she wanted me there when she passed.  Nor do I think she wanted the room full, when she passed.    My dad, two sisters and brother were there that whole day.  From what I am told, they talked to her, read to her and sang to her.  They held her hand.  At the moment she died, only her little boy was by her side.  Everyone else was occupied elsewhere in the room or hallway.  And me, her baby, thousands of miles away.

At first, I was okay with this.  But now, with the passage of time and, like so many other things, with thought I am not so okay with this.  Hearing is the last sense to leave when you are dying, so I am told.  I wish I could have whispered in her ear too.  I wish I could have held her hand.  My oldest sister reassures me that it was for the best.  Why?  Why was me not being there for the best?  I have to believe that it all unfolded the way God intended, and I must find peace with that. That's a hard thing to do.

Bird of Paradise

I decided to go by myself.  I felt badly asking my husband to stay home with our daughter.  It wasn't that I didn't want them there, it was just that I needed to be a grieving daughter and sister...and right then, in the midst of my grief, that is what I was.  I was my mother's youngest child grieving over her death.  I couldn't be anything else.  So I left, a few days after her death, alone.

I held in most of my emotion on the airplane taking me to her funeral.  My two sisters would meet me upon my arrival.  When I saw them, I lost it.  I lost complete control and sobbed. I wept from the deepest part of my soul, or so I thought.  We made our way out to the car. I dreaded the forty-five minute car trip taking me to my parent's, my Dad's, house.  Mom wouldn't be there and she wouldn't be anywhere else either. She was gone.

I cried again, this time in my father's arms.  I could feel his pain in his embrace.  We cried together, I've never seen my father cry in all my life.  Ever.  I cried all the more, as he, being the dad, tried to hold it together for me, to be strong...imagine that?  I couldn't believe she was gone.  Everywhere I looked in their house I saw her.  The couch where she spent so much of her time reading, doing her word search puzzles or watching her soaps.  The plastic chair on the lanai where she used to spend so much time smoking (when she still smoked), the ashtray on the table next to it.  Her craft room where she had made so many beautiful Christmas ornaments or completed the latest puzzle.  Her homemade decorations and so many pictures of her family placed all around the house.  The envelope in the kitchen drawer with the coupons and articles she intended to send me.  The smell of her perfume in her closet.  Her plants, so beautifully maintained, her knick-knacks.   Her hand creams, vaseline, tissues, little round pink or white mints, canvas tote bag with her crocheting projects in it.  The light green fleece jacket that she would always wear on her shoulders when she got cold and the blue fleece blanket that I had wrapped around her legs, when I visited in October, both still draped over the back of the couch. It was too much to take.

I arrived on Saturday, the funeral was scheduled for Tuesday.  The next day the immediate family were scheduled to go to the funeral home to "view" her.  "View" her, even now those words ring in my head.  What a sterile phrase.  To view the shell that once help my mother's soul.  The shell that once held all that was uniquely "mom".  To say that I was dreading tomorrow would be a severe understatement.  I had no idea what lie ahead.