Even when a death is impending and expected, even when the last few months or years of life have been full of pain, when it suddenly starts happening in earnest, when the focus becomes getting busy dying instead of getting busy living, it all seems too sudden and fast. In the last three weeks, I felt my mother's rapid decline and started grasping, gasping, desperate to keep her close.
Birth, living, dying, death. They are all messy and natural and mundane, and yet feel like they should be so much more important. How dare the world continue to go on as if nothing is wrong when I am losing my mother? I will never again smell the hollow of her neck that I associate with comfort; never hear her say, "I love you," or "Oh, for fun!" with a clap of her arthritic hands when she finds something particularly enjoyable. I tally the losses, all the little things that I wish I'd realized were for the last time. I was mildly insulted that her garden hadn't violated every law of nature and exploded with blooms a month or two early, just for her.
My mother taught us, all of us, about unconditional love. She taught us both in word and in action that people are who they are and are worthy of love regardless of their imperfections. She taught gentleness, but was the fiercest mama bear, and we, all of her children, learned from that, and our children, her grandchildren, may or may not appreciate it. She was a matriarch who ruled with a wide open heart and knotted apron strings, who taught us well and then let us find our own wings to fly, even when those wings took us in a direction she'd rather we not have gone- and then, even then, she loved us anyway.
I have said, and heard this echoed by my sisters, that I want to be exactly like my mom when I grow up. I feel so lucky to have called her friend in my adult years, although the road there was rocky. Her love of flowers, trees, and all things nature (except for squirrels) is something she passed on, as well. I will always feel most at peace with my hands or feet in the dirt, smelling soil rich with life and potential, coaxing plants from seed or bulb.
Friday morning didn't feel special. Uncle Bruce, Mom's oldest living brother, and his wife, Kathy, were visiting. We ate breakfast, I rubbed Mama with essential oils, gave her medication and sponged her mouth out with lemon water. The hospice nurse came, and then the bath aide, for a "spit and polish." They left, and Dad and Cheryl went out for groceries.
Mom died not fifteen minutes later. It was so quiet, and gentle, and unexceptional, the leaving of this exceptional woman. A deep breath, and then another, and then no more. I held her in my arms, told her she was loved, and let her go, my head on her chest, listening to her generous heart beat its last beats. And then I smelled that spot at the hollow of her throat, and I rubbed her down with oil and tears and so much love.
I am my mother's daughter. I am reminded of this every time I look in the mirror, every time I speak to my children, every time I dig in the dirt or feel too much or bake a loaf of bread or hold my children close. I am my mother's daughter, and I can't imagine it any other way.
