My mother died today and along with grief and throbbing pain
of the heart and mind came anger. Anger at those who continually told me that
things were, ”as she would have wanted.”
Of one thing I am certain, the one thing my mother would
have wanted, is NOT to have died ! That’s what my mother would have wanted!
My mother knew what I can see, that she was the lynch pin to
our family. With her we were a loving bunch; a family. Without her, we three
immediates left behind are little these days other than strangers linked by
years of hallmark cards, phone calls from opposite sides of the planet and an
even rarer text message. In forty four years, my father has called me on the
phone just 4 times. Each of them with bad news about my mother. My mother had always bought and sent the
celebratory cards at birthdays, Easter and Christmas. My father forced by her
to write the words within them so as to have a connection of sorts with us in
some degree.
We were not as a unit a technologically friendly family. My
mother and sister communicated via landline or fax machine. Few other people
could communicate with them as even fewer people still own fax machines. The
recording on the landline message machine was a twenty year old recording of my
voice. Computers, cell phones, smart phones, hand devices of any sought and
internet had never interested my parents.
I admit I was a late starter to technology myself and still
struggle with modern paraphernalia that we all must have these days but I have
accommodated multiple smart phones and laptops into my working life as it is
required.
My parents retired at forty. The next 33 years of their
lives my parents had stated that they had been left behind, until in fact they
had been, by everything and almost everyone.
It is true that my mother of the past few years was not the
woman I had loved in my youth, my teens, nor twenties. She had lead a hard
horrid life in her own youth and it, along with a sick husband who required her attention anther unexpected requirement to be the family banker, insurer,project manager and pacifier, along with medical
problems of her own had finally begun to take their toll. Three falls, mini
strokes and suspected alcohol mixed with medication taking over the past few
years had made her forgetful and lapses of memory where common. At times she
could be lucid and current in her thoughts. Other times she slurred and forgot
many things.
Either way, she was my mum and I loved her dearly. She was
there always, even if the phone calls had become fewer, the letters and
postcards had become less consistent and harder to read when they did arrive and
the distance of myself had increased to half a planet. She was in this world and
that was what counted. To hear her laughter, to make her laugh soothed whatever was wrong in my life. I hoped for those moments it soothed hers too.
I knew of my mothers hatred for illness. She was stubborn
and could look after herself. I inherited that trait. She hated anyone taking care of her and our
father. She was a trooper in the old sense. She had told us all that she did
not wish to ever be a burden and that her Grandfather had suffered long years
of care having been incapacitated by a stroke. She did not want this at all.
I know that. But a few hours ago, before I could board a
plane to begin the journey home, my father made the difficult and heinous
decision to remove my mother from life support and to have her laid to
rest. It was in a brief phone
conversation with me after the fact, as he stated, “That’s what she would have
wanted.”
He wanted us to remember her as she was, not as how she had
become due to her fall and care over the 48 hours since her accident.
I was raised to respect my elders. I was raised to love my
parents. but this time I don't agree.
Perhaps the distance of time and geography is all my fault,
but I feel robbed of having had the chance to say goodbye.
Is it wrong to think that if someone is on life support that
they could be held there for a day longer if family were in transit. Is it
wrong to ask to see your mother before internment of any kind even if it was
not what she had told me she wanted. She was after all, no longer here to
reprimand me any more and there where plenty of things that in my forties, I had
done and she and my father had done too, that both of us did not agree with. If things are so perfect now and he follows the rules as "she would have wanted", then why was she even out of the house in her recent state. She had suffered a half dozen falls in 12 months at home and at malls, so why did no one accompany her that day. What my mother would have wanted is to have not hit her head again and to be a public spectacle in a public bathroom. No one cared then. So why the rush to follow the rules after the fact and rob me of a chance to say goodbye. I did not care
how my mother looked, it was just to touch her one last time to hold her hand,
to whisper to her “I love you dearly with all my heart Mum”, "Im going to miss you so damned much Mum."
Who now do I ask the tough questions of life? Who tells me everything is going to be okay? Who is going to tell me that they love me no matter what? Who's going to pay the AMEX card?
I hate flying. I hate death. I have been guilt ridden
because of it for decades due to an early loss of a close friend when we were both 21 and along the
journey of life, so many others who have entered and exited my life..
Seeing sunrise or sunset at 35,000 feet always makes me cry
as I am closer to heaven and am seeing beauty of Gods creations first hand.
Today I hate flying for the heavens contain my mother as
well as my friends. Today I can't forgive God for taking her.
Today that same sunrise is a horrid blood red, not the
tequila sunrise shade of gorgeous orange it always has held for me.
Today I am flying home to a lost goodbye and my heart is
irreparably broken.
