Happy Mothers Day. Cards and gifts, flowers and celebration.
I miss my mom.
So it’s been kind of bittersweet. The joy of being a mother, coupled with the reality that I’m now one of the many who will not hear their mom’s voice on this day.
I have friends who are celebrating their first Mothers Day as a mom. I remember that feeling. I see the threads of love wrapping around them, creating a cocoon of safety and love for their child. As my mom did for me. As I did for my kids. Unconditional love.
No matter how old I get, when I’m down or feeling sick I want my mommy. I want to crawl into her lap so she can rock me. I want that feeling of love and security, of peace, that I always got when my mom wrapped her arms around me.
It used to be easy to capture that feeling. I could meet her, or go to her house, walk up to her and put my arms around her. There was never a hesitation, her arms wrapped me in love and acceptance without a word being spoken. I would take a deep breath of that special smell that was a combination of so many things, instantly recognizable.
It’s harder, but less complicated now to talk to my mom and get that hug. I have to dig deep into memories to recapture those feelings. But I don’t have to pick up a phone or get in the car. I close my eyes, take a deep breath and feel my mom’s love all through me. Because that is where my mom is now, a part of me, a part of my soul.
It’s been a year. A year without your voice, a year without your laugh.
Those last months when your body was still with us but your mind was flitting between here and somewhere else were hard. The trip I made to Little Rock to see you was bittersweet. I’ll never forget the smile on your face when you saw me walk into your room. You instantly recognized me, which was such a relief. Then you started talking and I couldn’t follow. The next day you didn’t remember I had been there. In a way that was a relief, because I knew it was not causing you pain that I wasn’t there to see you every day. I still felt guilty, but not as much.
There were no more phone calls. You couldn’t figure out how to use the phone. If Michael or Tracey put the phone to your ear, all you were doing was parroting words. You couldn’t hear or understand me. That was so sad, but it prepared me for this year.
You may not physically be on this earth, but you are still with me.
Every time, and I mean every time, I walk through the house watching the sunset I think of you. I remember your joy in the vibrant colors and huge scope of our Colorado sunsets. I remember you sitting on the couch in the sun room, watching the birds, nodding off to sleep in the sun.
I drove to Cripple Creek a few weeks ago. I remembered you looking out the window, riveted by the colors of the aspens in the fall. I laughed about your gambling “addiction” and how adamant you were that you needed to try out the casinos in Cripple Creek. I regret not taking you more often.
I sit in the living room and remember us painting it together. I was on the ladder, you were doing the lower part of the walls. I never told you about going behind you to get the parts that you missed. Remember all the houses we have painted together?
I’m not as directionally challenged as you were. Frankly I don’t think it’s possible to be worse than you were and still operate in society. But when I get turned around and a little lost, you are there with me giggling. And the first thing I think is “you are just like your mother”.
I’ll always take that as a compliment.
I had friends over last night. They were sitting on your side of the counter while I cooked. We poured some wine for them and the memories flooded me yet again. I could see you sitting there, wine glass in hand, keeping me company while I cooked. I remember the laughter, the jokes, and the giggles. How fortunate I am to have had such a wacky mom.
So more people have heard about you Mom. More of your stories have been told. They don’t mean much to the people that hear them, I know that. But the telling is important to me. To Keely, Kat, David. It’s the way that we continue to include you in our lives.
I think I talk to you more now than I did that last year you were alive. On those long drives in the car going to Colorado Springs I tell you about what is going on in my life. I know you already know, but it helps to tell you. And of course I can carry on your part of the conversation because I know you so well. I can hear your voice “Well, Michelle….”
When I am alone in the house that is when I feel you close. I put on “your” music, Enya or Yanni, and as it floods through the air you are there. I cry. I miss my Mom. I want to hold your hand, hug you one more time.
I had the gift of time with you for many months while you stayed with us in Colorado. What a very precious gift that was. Keely got to spend a lot of time with her beloved Grandma.
You knew that I loved you. I knew that you loved me. In the end, that was really all that mattered.
So Mom, this is your birthday. It is one year and a few days since you left us. So listen to me as I sing Happy Birthday to you, and know that I love you very much.
While I hold my mom’s hand as she walks to help steady her, dad was never the hand holding type. As he got older, he would use his cane, and then a walker, to get around. He would reluctantly accept some help getting in and out of the car, but that was pretty much the limit of the contact he would accept.
Last week I took Keely to see dad at the nursing home, the day after he was moved from home. He knew who she was, and reached over to take her hand.
Keely holding Grandpa's hand
As we talked, Keely kept her hand on his. That was the last time Keely saw her Grandpa. I purposely kept her away as the process of death accelerated. I wanted her to remember him as he was that day, frail yes, but still the Grandpa that she knew.
Each day as I visited, there were changes. The last few days, he withdrew into himself, sleeping, or drifting in and out of concisions, I’m not sure which. It seemed obvious that he didn’t know we were there.
Holding his hand became a way for us to connect with him, to hope that he could feel our presence. I could judge his progress on this short final journey by holding his hand. I was amazed, that first day, at the strength of his grip. He looked at me, squeezed my hand, we talked.
Holding my dad's hand
The last two days, his hand lay in mine; there was no grip, no strength at all.
Lying awake last night, images in my head of these last days. My brother Michael, holding dad’s hand and gently wiping the hair off his forehead, tears streaming down his face as he looked at his father lying in the hospital bed. I wish I had thought to get a picture, but that image will be in my mind for a long time to come. Michael took the lead in taking care of dad these last years, exasperated by the cantankerous man that my dad was, he was still fiercely protective of him, agonizing over this process. I saw a side of my brother that I had never seen, vulnerable, yet strong in so many ways, doing whatever was needed to take care of his dad.
My sister Anne-Marie came to my parent’s house almost every day. Helping with dad’s care when he was still home, taking much of the burden off of mom.
Tracey spent several hours yesterday with dad. I was there for a while, we talked. We cried. It was so very obvious that the time was getting short.
Tracey holding dad's hand
She held his hand the entire time.
One of the most difficult parts of this was watching mom with him. It was hard for her, seeing him in the nursing home, watching the very visible decline in his body. The first few days, there was recognition. She teased him, he smiled.
I don’t know if he recognized these were the last days with family. We made the conscious decision not to tell him. There seemed to be no reason to cause him agitation or stress. And really, what could words tell him that he didn’t already know?
I told him that Kathy had reminisced about him giving her a ride on the riding lawnmower, of hitting golf balls with him out at our farm. He smiled.
I gave the message, from Kathy and David, that they said “hello.”
What I was really doing was telling him goodbye for them.
Then came the time I took mom to see him and there was no conversation, there was no eye contact on his part. He slept. He didn’t know we were there.
Yesterday, his last day, she held his hand. Talked to him. As we were leaving his eyes opened. She told him goodbye, that we were leaving. She repeated it, louder this time. For the first time in two days he looked at her, and he waved his hand goodbye. Then he closed his eyes.
As we walked out, mom and I smiled. He had heard his wife’s voice, responded to her.
A few hours later he was gone.
As I look back, I realize that the last voice he heard, really heard, was my mom talking to him. Telling him that she loved him, and goodbye. How fitting is that. The voice that he loved for sixty five years was the last voice he heard. The last words “I love you Mike”.
Michelle Rae 