Loosing Mothers'

Mother's Day naturally found me thinking about my mother Dorothy, whom I lost to heaven five months ago. Since then I have struggled with the usual grief of loosing someone so important in my life and I have struggled with a few personal issues as well. It took me a while to shake a resentful feeling that I was feeling toward Susan. If she had not been here I could have stayed with my mother in Florida those last few weeks as she fought for her life in the hospital. Like when I first married, I found it once again hard to call her Mom, as if somehow I might betray my own mother. I had lost my Mom and Susan wasn't her, or like her. Unfairly, I found my brain resenting Susan's self-centeredness. My mind would flash back at past hurts caused by Susan always being the center of her own world; and now I struggled with the resentment of her being the center of mine. I wanted to be with my mother, not Jeff's.

Well,I have mostly dealt with those issues and I again call her Mom, knowing that doing so in no way replaces the love and respect I feel for my own mother. But as I have remember back on this past December 1st, I read over my journal entry from that day, which I will share (in part)here:

The Heaven’s Align

Susan is saying twelve Hail Mary’s and twelve Our Father's right now. As she sits in her chair and prays for my own mother who is half way across the United States on her deathbed right now, I remain silent. She is trying to feel with me and fight with me. She is asking God to keep my mother alive. We cried in the kitchen together, me thinking of my sweet mother while Susan wailed that this is about her too. She reminded me that she lost her own mother.

I know she did and I sympathise, but it is my own mother I am concerned about today, my mother who has fought through incredible obstacles these past few years. We have watched her dwindle and fight over and over while each time appearing a bit weaker and further away. But today may be her last fight, it seems. The doctor has told the family that the next few hours are critical and I know that I will not make it there to be with her in the end.

Mary and Chuck and Sandi are there. I get calls every half hour or so with updates. They say she is peaceful and weak and her breathing is slower. Mary is giving her a facial, Sandi took Shannon to a hospital sale where Shannon picked pretty jewelry that they took to Mom and placed on her- pink bracelets and jewels. Mary tells how peaceful and beautiful Mom looks and how clear her skin is, although she is freezing. Her fingertips are beginning to turn dark, which is apparently a sign that the end is closer. Pastor Joe is there with them. Chuck, who for these past few months has been encouraging Mom to fight to live, has finally receded; not because he doesn’t want Mom to fight anymore or that he is ready to let her go. But unselfishly he has asked Mary to let Mom know that it is okay, that if she passes on to another life that he will be all right. He is too broken hearted to tell her himself, but stays in the room while Mary relays this important message. Maybe that is what Mom needed to hear.

Mary tells Mom that today would be a good day if she chose it to be her last on earth since there is a celestial phenomenon in the skies tonight where two planets are very close to the moon. She tells Mom that it would be a night where we would all remember that the moon and planets came together to escort her up into the heavens.

Another call comes in. “Mom is gone,” Sandi whispers on the other end. I take the phone into my bedroom for privacy and so I don’t have to attempt to explain to Susan what she overheard. My mother, my precious only mother. My sweet gentle loving mother is gone from earth. I cry. I want to see the sky and maybe get a glimpse of my mother leaving earth, as silly as that sounds, so I sneak out my bedroom door and unto the porch where I break down and cry and look at the sky and tell my mother that I love her out loud in case she is passing my way. Diego, the dog senses my grief and sits quietly nearby, guarded, as if I might need him, and I might. My insides contract as I cry alone for my mother and look to the sky that for the first time looms over my motherless world.

I don’t know life without a mother. I don’t want to know life without a mother. But I do want my mother to be in a better place where she has no pain or struggles and where I believe she rejoins her Charlie, her own mother and her first child, my sister Starr. I know that I will join them all one day and when I do I will not be afraid. I know that I will have eternal life in heaven with God, thanks to Jesus who made that possible. This truth about Jesus is something I have always known is true and never doubted ever since I can remember. I know I don’t deserve eternal life, but that is the beauty of Jesus dying on the cross for sinners like me.Thank you Jesus.