I know it has been a while since I posted and... well, life. Some of it is good and some of it is not. You know that saying, "Time flies when you're having fun?" Well, time also flies when you have tragedy. You see, this year started out just like every other year in my life - with a lovely New Year's Day full of home cooked food (slow roasted pork shoulder, kale, home made bread, etc.) and progressed swimmingly towards my sister's birthday on the 8th of January.
Early on the morning of the 13th, we got a call that my mother had been rushed to the hospital in respiratory distress. My mom's house is four hours away and before any of us could rush to be there, she was gone. Just like that. No warning, no chance to say goodbye or tell her how much we loved her. Nothing but disbelief, shock and crushing sadness. It will be five months on June 13th and I still have moments when I just can't believe she is gone. It is as if a portion of my brain just doesn't want to cling to the reality of a world without her in it.
It is a strange thing, losing a parent. We all know it is coming - it is the natural order of things. Old people die. We all know that, just as we know that one day we will be old and then we will die. When both parents are gone we become unmoored, in a sense. Suddenly, the only person that remembers our childhood is us. Our parents take the memories of our first steps, our first words, and our first day of school with them when they go and we truly cease to be the child, literally and figuratively. It is a strange feeling to be cut adrift in the vast sea of humanity without the parental shelter awaiting our return. We are thrust into the role of reigning adult and are now the repository for the family history and lore.
When my dad was sick with Alzheimer's, it was tough on all of us, losing him a little bit by bit and even sadder, he lost himself bit by bit. In June 2013, as he neared the end of his life, we all gathered around him and after I kissed him on his forehead, I whispered to him, "It's okay, you can let go... we'll all be fine." It was true too. As much as we all loved him, watching him lose the essence of himself was, I thought worse than losing him all at once. Alzheimer's is a horrible disease, robbing its victims of their families, their memories and finally, their dignity, so there was a sense of gratitude that he was no longer suffering.
In my mother's case though, there was no long goodbye. She was there one day and gone the next. No mental preparation, no sense of relief that she was released from suffering - just shock, pain and sadness.
It's a human thing to play the "what if" game and especially when we have a sudden loss like this. "What if she had listened to me and gone to the doctor the last time I talked to her?" "What if I could have spoken with the ER doctor and said, Yes, please resuscitate her?" But the biggest thing is always, "What if we knew that the last time we talked with ..... (fill in the blank), was the last time we were going to talk with them?" What would we say? What would we want them to know? What was left unsaid?
For me, this at least carries no guilt. I told her I loved her. Every time. Because I did. She's gone now and carries a piece of my heart with her, but at least wherever she goes in her travels now, she knows that and that is the most important thing - to know we love and are loved.
We will be taking her ashes back home in September. Back to El Paso, where she came into being 84 years ago upon this earthly plane, to rest beside my dad, underneath the rocky shadows of the Franklin Mountains and the vast, impossibly blue sky of her desert home.
I'll be back tomorrow with a garden up date. In the meantime, hug your parents, if you can.
Until then, gentle readers, Be Kind to each other.
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