Leaps and Bounds

I'd forgotten how good it feels to be here.

I just reread my last post and it was chilling to realize that Mom passed only two weeks after that on Father's Day. It was painless and she passed in her sleep, or more specifically, a kind of coma. Mike was sick again and thus unable to go but dad and I sat by her bed for a long while. We talked about letting go and I suggested she hung on because he hadn't yet given her the assurance she needed. He resisted at first. We both cried a great deal. Finally, he went to her bedside. He's become so stiff in his old age that it was painful to watch him stoop toward her ear. But then he did it. He told her that if she needed to go he would be alright. He gave her permission to die. Then he went home and I went to the hotel. She died at 5am that morning. Both a blessing and a curse.

So much of my life had been absorbed in her struggle that I'm not sure I knew what to do with myself. We prepared her funeral. It was a good turnout. That's what they always say, don't they? As if the population of your funeral had anything to do with how you lived your life. She was a loving, caring, devoted person in health. She was alone in sickness. I understand that acutely now. People didn't avoid her because she was a burden or because her frequent bouts with dementia made her unlikeable. It was because her illness forced them to face their own mortality and there is nothing people like more than blinding themselves to negative or unpleasant aspects of life. My friend TJ calls it unnecessary problems. My own illness has brought a similar reaction from some but not all of my acquaintances.

I remember thinking that the Paster knew nothing about her as he read the scripture he'd chosen for her and that I, a veteran pagan, could have chosen more apt scripture for her.

That's been just about two years now. We spread her ashes under her beloved Mulberry tree. I think of her often, dream of her frequently. When I first became ill I was struck by seizures. After an extremely forceful one I couldn't remember that she had passed. It must have been terrible for Mike to have to tell me again. I know it was awful enough living it twice. People often comment about how they still feel the presence of their loved ones either as a spirit or a running dialogue in their minds. I'm happy to say I feel none of that. I feel that she is truly at rest. The girls spray her perfume every once in awhile and on those occasions the pain becomes sharper but there was never a feeling of leaving things undone or unsaid and for that I am grateful.

I miss you, Mom. Everyday you are in my heart just as you always were. Your memory guides me even though your spirit us at rest.