Mama (about grief, partly)

I wrote this title several weeks ago because I want to write about my dear Mom. She has been dead one year plus. Daddy was here last week and he is still missing her terribly. I found a picture I had taken of her that was so typical, and a good picture it was, too. In the picture she is sitting at their kitchen table in those comfy padded chairs with wheels on them and you can see her African violets in the windowsill behind her. She is wearing her pink tinted glasses. I did not like them, but she did. She had caterac surgery and after that she could read without glasses but she still preferred to wear them. My guess right now tonight is that they diminished her wrinkles. She didn't like looking old. I gave the photograph to Daddy.

Now then, Mom. Mom. My dear Mom. We would sit at that table and have long talks with many cups of coffee and their itty bitty county newspaper in the mornings.

She stayed active. She was a PEO. She worked out at Curves. She danced in a line dancing group that performed in public. She went out to eat with her lunch bunch. She sewed clothes and was in a club in which they modeled their own creations. She did ceramics. She took an oil-painting class. She read. She stitched many many quilts, some for beds, others for wall hangings. She made me a plastic bag holder out of quilting -- a thingie you stuff grocery bags into the top of and pull them out of the bottom. She made me a quilted yardstick holder. She learned a Swedish embroidery stitch when they visited Sweden and stitched a rust colored Afghan out of it. When I admired it she made me one in blue. It took her 45 minutes to go across one row and there must have been several hundred rows of stitching.

She always had a project in her hands while she and Daddy sat in the living room after dinner with the TV on. I don't know how much they watched; Daddy would be reading his financial magazines and the Wall Street Journal.

She was a very good golfer in her day. She was beautiful. She had dark curly hair that didn't gray till very late. She never got fat. She slowed down, but always walked around the circle every night when I was there. In their neighborhood there are lots of circles at the ends of the streets, like cul-de-sacs, except they are big and have a large wild green area in the center and about 10 or 15 houses around them. A fox lived in the wild part in their circle. The Florida stars are very bright, not dulled by city light.

Mom, she always wished she had gone to college, but I think she had a lot of wisdom that "educated" people missed out on. She was practical. She and Rick used to talk about current affairs, politics. She had an opinion and let you know if she thought something was wrong.

After Mom's death, I found myself saying "Mama". I never called her that, but that is what comes to mind now. Mama.

It was so hard to watch her die. That strong beautiful woman, though old and wrinkly and slowing down, always hospitable, always compassionate. She lost hope and the doctors said "this is it, we cannot fix your problems any more." She did not hesitate. "I want to go home. I want you to get Hospice and I want lots of morphine and I want to go fast." I said, "Mom, I don't think that's legal," but that is pretty much what we did.

Hospice was absolutely wonderful. We made her as comfortable as possible. She wanted her special oatmeal with milk. She asked for peanutbutter on graham crackers. I slept in the twin bed next to hers. I heard her with my mothers' ears at night, the ears that hear the baby's slightest whimper. I gave her sips of water and bathed her face with cold water and a tissue. She had strep along with her other ailments, and we had strict instructions to keep ourselves from catching it. Hurricane Charley was barreling towards us but turned and hit farther South.

One day Mom said I think this is the day. When I woke up this morning, she said, I felt something prodding me in my back and I think it's time. She was wrong. She was a tough old bird and did not die for four more days. The hospice nurse said "She is actively dying".

I miss her. Your Mom and Dad are just always there, and that's how it is. How can she just quit like that? If I had not lost my husband, this would have been much more of a mystery. Yet at the same time, each death is unique. It is hard. I want to see her walking into her beloved kitchen....now that brings me to her claim to fame, her cooking. She was known for it.

When we returned from Africa after 11 years, I said to my husband, "what do you want to eat?" and he said, "Whatever your mom cooks." She grew up with 2 sisters and her parents owned a restaurant in their tiny town and they did all the cooking. She used to show us an old menu. T-bone steak for 75 cents! Mom.

I miss her. She would come out in the morning in her silky flowered robe and at breakfast she would already be planning dinner. I love fish, but my kids don't, so I don't cook it at home. Mom would cook fish for me. I am infamous for overcooking it, but she had the touch.

And that ugly coffee mug that had "Grog" written on it and had newsprint stains on it and she loved to drink out of it.

I wished I could take her weak, wasting body in my arms and hold her, cradle her against my chest and stroke her hair and cuddle her, comfort her. Let her sleep in my arms. But because of the strep I couldn't even kiss her. Mama.

She gave me life. She taught me to sew. She took care of me when I was sick and comforted me. She is MY Mom.

She is in heaven now being comforted by the Lord Himself. No worries about strep. No contageous diseases in heaven. She and Rick have the full picture now and don't need to worry about politics any more. Her suffering is over. She talked of her own selfishness while on her deathbed. We talked of Jesus and how he had prepared the way to heaven for us because of His death in our place. She believed in Him.

She asked me about praying out loud: How can you do it? I said it's not a performance; it's just talking to God. He doesn't care if it is polished or sounds like a speech. After that conversation she prayed out loud with me. I told her I loved her so many times and she told me the same.

Those days of turmoil and mercy. In the afternoon the clouds would roll by and sometimes drop rain. Usually they would rumble softly. Thunder without a storm. God lining up his bowling balls in the rack. The skies are so dramatic down there in the tropics. Big cumulous clouds that get drenched with color as the sun goes down. Anyway, each day I was barely aware of that rumbling thunder, though it did register in my subconcious, because I remembered it later.

I had been trying to get in touch with my coach to set up our next phone appointment. I had left him several messages asking him to call at my parents' home. Then it dawned on me: we are on the phone all day long. He has probably tried to call. So I left him a message to call my cell phone.

My sister and I and Daddy were sitting by Mom's bed. She had been asleep a long time. The hopsice people said death was imminent. I was exhausted and went to take a break and fell asleep on my parents' bed. My cell phone woke me up. I thought it was my coach and it was. Yes, he had been trying to call the house and yes, the line had been busy.

I took the phone outside and sat on the little bench by the front door. That thunder was gently rumbling. My coach asked about how it was going and I told him. Then we scheduled our appointment and he prayed for me. He asked that God would end Mom's suffering and that He would take her. When I went inside the nurse said, they have been looking for you; I think your Mom is gone. I cried to see my Dad sitting by her bed looking at her. I told him I loved him.

The thunder. When I thought about it later, I remembered that song: Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, comin' for to carry me home.... the image in my mind was of an angel coming down in a chariot on that afternoon in Florida, stopping to pick up my mom, and giving her a ride to Heaven. The sound of that soft thunder was the chariot wheels.