MOM

(I post this same piece every year on this date. I appreciate your patience with me as I remember her again.)

My mom died on a Monday.  It was chilly outside and the sun was trying to peek through a gloomy grey sky.  I know because I was looking to the heavens a lot that day.  Her death wasn’t expected, but neither was it a complete surprise.  She went into the hospital a healthy woman with a minor case of Pancreatitis, which she suffered and recovered from previously, and two months later she was gone.  There were infections, multiple surgeries, breathing problems, kidney failure, and a long list of other complications that led ultimately to a coma.  In the end, it reached a point where it became a family choice to discontinue the life-saving measures that were keeping her alive and prolonging her suffering.  When she slipped the bonds of her tortured body and moved on to her next journey, I wasn’t in the room.  I couldn’t.  She was 69 years young.

A few days later, just prior to her funeral, I was alone in the basement of my parents home when my Dad came to me with a question.  He wanted to know if I would say something during the service.  I had already been contemplating the notion, so I agreed without hesitation. My dad appeared relieved.  I realized then that this rock of a man, who I had watched wither away emotionally as much as the woman he loved was doing physically, wouldn’t have been able to stand up in front of our friends and family.  He knew that even as shy and withdrawn as I am, my work had provided me experience communicating in front of groups.  It was important to him, and me, that somebody who knew her well would speak for her at the service. 

Even though my parents weren’t regular churchgoers, my mother was raised Methodist and the services were held at a quaint little church not too far from where they lived.  The two of them had only lived in Loganville, GA for ten years, but you wouldn’t have known it from the number of people who made it to the funeral.  Family and friends overwhelmed that poor little church. 

The service was performed by a priest I’d met that very day, and that my mother had never met.  It was generic, as only it could be until he asked if there was anybody who wished to offer a few words.  I stood up, nervously stepped to the podium and looked out over the gathering.  A rush of panic momentarily seized me, constricting my vocal cords and raising the temperature in the room to 120 F.  But when I found my father’s eyes a calmness settled over me, driving out the uncertainty.  I was ready. 

Although what follows isn’t word for word what I said back then, it’s pretty close. 

“When Dad asked me if I wanted to speak here today I immediately said yes, but then I spent the next couple of days thinking about what it was I wanted to say.  The more I thought about it, the more this single question kept popping into my head.  Before long that question was all I could think about.  It tormented me day and night.  When the answer finally came to me, I realized it’s actually the reason I’m standing here right now.  I also realized that many of you might be asking yourself the same question.  I hope I can help answer it for you.

First I want to tell you of two memories of my Mom that I keep not in my head, but in my heart.  They represent who she was to me and to a lot of you as well.  The first one took place when I was just 7 or 8 years old and we were living in military housing at Quantico Virginia.  For some reason I was in a different school system than my two brothers, which meant I had to take a separate school bus.  This really terrified me, but I never let on to anybody.  One morning my brothers were already gone off to school and I was dragging my feet getting ready, feeling especially alone that day, when mom asked me what was wrong.  I can still see her standing there in her white housecoat that was three inches too long and dragged on the carpet wherever she walked.  Of course, I said nothing, but she must have known something wasn’t right.  She asked me if I wanted to take the day off.  The DAY OFF?  You can do that, I asked her.  We sure can, what do you want to do first?  We never left the house that day.  She made me pancakes, we played game after game, she watched cartoons with me, it was great.  It was one of the best days ever, and it came at just the right time.  And she knew it without me even saying a word.

The second story occurred years later when I was a sophomore in college.  I had just broken up with what was my first serious girlfriend and I had crawled home to lick my wounds.  Of course, I didn’t come out with it right away, but Mom again knew something was wrong.  Eventually, she got me to open up and I cried my eyes out to her.  The whole time she was calm and soothing, letting me just spill my guts out.  After a while, I felt much better, so she told me she needed to run into town to pick up some groceries.  What I didn’t find out until much later was that when she left the house she drove to the first gas station she could find.  She called Dad at work from a pay phone and cried her eyes out to him over the phone.  She didn’t want me to see how my pain was tearing her up inside.

That’s the way Mom was, and I think that’s why Dad asked me to speak to you today.  My Mother was not an emotional person on the outside.  It was hard to tell where you stood with her sometimes.  Everything with her ran very deep, with very little showing on the surface.  But she always knew when you were down or needed a little extra attention.  She was very in tune with peoples feelings, even though she didn’t demonstrate much of that herself.  And I’m the same way.  Of all us in this family, I’m the one who is most like her. 

That is how I figured out the answer to the question upsetting me, because I’m like my Mom, and she was like me.

And what was that question? Did she know?  When she left us, did she know how much I loved her, how much we all loved her and will now miss her?  Did I tell her enough?  Did I show her enough?

I can tell you now that the answer is yes.  She may not have been the hugging, kissing, or fussing type, in fact, that may have made her uncomfortable, but she knew how we felt just the same.  Just as I would. 

 She knew we loved her, that I loved her, and will miss her terribly. 

Goodbye, mom.

A parent’s passing is a loss that cracks your very foundation and makes you question your every step.  I feel cheated that now that I’m a father with older children of my own, and I’m really starting to appreciate what it truly means to raise a child, that I won’t have her here with me so that I can thank her all the more.  But writing this blog helps me keep her alive in my thoughts. 

I miss you, Mom!