In the final years of her life, my mother shared that she felt she’d had a good life, but was ready to die. She said she was tired and, except for me, had no reason to live anymore. The death she longed for finally came on August 15, 2009. She was 93.
My mother died on a Saturday morning, a Sabbath morning. The following Sunday evening I was seized with overwhelming anger and resentment. I stomped around the kitchen crying and raging that I had taken better care of her than she had taken of me; she had never understood me and now, in the sentient world, never would. Purging the anger and resentment allowed me to let them go and to forgive her unconditionally. The truth asserted itself. It was a simple truth and it filled my heart: I love Mom dearly and miss her very much — and I had missed her all my life.
Tender memories fill my heart and act as God’s grace as they triumph over darker feelings Memories of when Mom, with complete devotion and love, watched over me for three days and nights as I slept in complete pregnant exhaustion. Mom allowing me, her creative young child, to draw on the downstairs basement wall behind her as she ironed. Mom standing up to my father for my hurt feelings when I was nine years old: a rare, yet precious, validation of those hurt feelings. Mom, while in hospice, accepting my request for her to be my guardian angel and tenderly gazing at me as she said, “I love you.”
Mom was finally able to unleash raw human emotion when she had enough of living. “I hate you” let me know she was not happy with how I was overseeing her care. On another occasion it let me know again her hidden feelings toward me. Her comments act as a sad reminder that I, too, couldn’t meet all her needs. We both were vulnerable.
Mom allowed me to paint her toe nails the color “penny” and I painted mine the same color. Now, when I long for a physical connection with her, I use the “penny” nail polish. This token of a physical connection is comforting but also a sad reminder of how much I wish we could have given each other “a penny for your thoughts” when we had the chance. As Mom lay on her death bed, I drew her portrait and stroked her face as she called me “Mom.” The night after she died I felt her gently stroke my left cheek. These memories touch my heart and calm my restless spirit.
