Today is a day that I have been truly dreading ever since the enormity of it registered with me. The very last time I saw my mother alive down here was one year ago today, when I was allowed a very controlled, outdoor visit with her, as she had found herself “trapped” in a facility during the throes of the pandemic. It was Mom’s birthday and, though she insisted very vehemently that I not come in person, something in me simply would not allow me to stay home. I know now that the strong compelling I felt was the Spirit of our sweet God who knew long beforehand that that day, June 15, 2021, would be our last time together down here in this world, the way this world is now.
Mama was not in a great mood that day and I understood why. Her back was broken, which was one of the reasons she was in a facility, and it was apparently quite painful for her to be moved from her hospital bed into a reclining chair with wheels so that it could be pushed outside. I didn’t want to be selfish by coming for a visit, so I talked with Mama’s social worker, a true guardian angel for us both—and she strongly encouraged me to come. “I think it would be good for, Mom, Angie. Come on and we’ll have her outside. She needs this, no matter what she says.” I made coconut pudding for her (she’d always been crazy for coconut anything!). When I was much younger, I used to tell her that she would have fared rather well on Gilligan’s Island. She didn’t eat much at all, which really surprised me. I had, after all, had my first “pandemic-style” visit with her on Mother’s Day, the month before this visit, and she had devoured the coconut pudding then. And every other gift that I brought for her birthday, she tried to send back home with me. “I don’t need anything, Angie. Don’t you come back here. It’s too dangerous,” she’d go to tell me that day. “I love you,” she said, kissing the top of my hand as she held it in her own and as the staff pivoted her chair and pulled her back into the building.
And well, that was that. I would never see my mother again, at least not in the pitiful condition she was in that day. I vividly remember crying all the way home. It’s like I somehow knew that our time together here was coming to an end—I just didn’t know that I knew, until it was over. We did have many more phone conversations but no more face-to-face. I believe that Mom sensed her transition away from this realm coming too, as her mood seemed to fluctuate increasingly between becoming more settled and more anxious. Now that I think about it, it seemed like most other new experiences we have—you know it’s coming and there’s a part of you that’s okay with it coming but another part of you that’s terribly afraid of the thing you’ve never experienced before in your life, the thing we call “death.”
Though I’ve had the gift of time since Mom passed on, time doesn’t heal, and I don’t know why we even bother to say that it does—time merely carries us, chronologically, further away from the “event” and from the initial shock and pain of it. But heal time does not. One of the most meaningful exchanges I’ve had since Mama crossed over, an encounter that was rather healing, was with a chaplain from Wake Med who called our house a few weeks after Mama’s death. She, the chaplain, just wanted to check in on me to see how I was doing. I was really surprised by the call, especially since I had not even been at the hospital when Mom died. She’d been found unresponsive and then whisked to the ICU and put on life support at the same time my teenage daughter was having her first ever surgery. And in addition, COVID numbers were starting to spike again. So, rushing to the ICU was deemed by those closest to me to be a “bad” idea for me. Thus, as I said in an earlier post, I had to make the gut-wrenching decision to say good-bye to my mama via telephone as her sedation was lifted and her life support was removed. I was able to recount all of this quite calmly to the chaplain on the phone the day she called. Yes, I was super-collected until she asked, “Well, how are you doing with all this?” Now why did she have to go and ask me that question!?!
That one question took me to ugly cry zone, and I was thankful that there was a phone line between us. At least she couldn’t see me and could only hear me. “She died alone!” I wailed to the chaplain. “My own mother who did everything in her power to make sure her mother, my precious granny, didn’t die alone, had to die alone herself! I don’t know what to do with that! It just feels so not right! I should have been by her side!” And that wonderful chaplain, Nancy is her name, comforted me in such a way that I really did feel a little better about things. No cliches, no false “warm and fuzzies,” no invalidating of any sort—just plain comfort. She would later write me a note and mail it to me; it’s dated September 10, 2021, and it’s kept in the memory box I’ve started for Mom. I had asked Nancy on the phone if she could find out if someone was in the room with Mom when she coded—it seemed that I just really needed to know that to move on; she couldn’t find out for me, though she tried. Here is a little excerpt from Nancy’s note, after she wrote that she could not locate the information I’d asked for: “My own belief though is that she did not die alone. God promises to be with us in all circumstances, so I believe God was there and provided peace & comfort & love even though I know you are sad you weren’t there.” And she closed her note with the words, “May God be close.” And I know He was, and I know He is-always! He was close to Mama, and He is close to me now. Time may not heal but God surely can—and God surely does, on days like today and on days like the day my mom met Him face-to-face and on all the other “ordinary” days in between. Our most healing God is indeed close—and amidst all the suffering we must endure here, that is enough, at least for now.
Leave a Reply