Gone From My
Sight
by Henry Van
Dyke
I am standing upon
the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and
starts
for the blue ocean. She is an
object of beauty and strength.
I
stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to
mingle with each other.
Then,
someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as
large in mast,
hull and spar as she
was when she left my side.
And, she
is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined
port.
Her diminished size is in
me -- not in her.
And, just at the
moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other
voices
ready to take up the glad
shout, "Here she comes!"
And
that is dying...
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I figure there are two ways to go with today's entry: about Mom's life, or processing my loss. The song I am compulsively listening to and celebrating Mom's passing is "Great is the Lord" by Maranatha. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaOIdhPLqeQ (male voices) or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMwi86QVMTQ (female lead - my favourite). I know Mom's been wanting to go home to heaven for at least 15 years and has talked about it often with hope and joy. She has not had an easy life, but seldom complained. With the two new breaks in her spine and the pain she's had for 70 years since her first broken back - there is no way I could want her back to endure more pain. The main thing I've heard her complain about is her advanced age meant she had so many more people to grieve and that was becoming a burden. She lost her dad at age 7 and got sick during his funeral and ended up living apart from her mother and brother for almost a year while her mother's friends nursed her back to health. She lost her best friend who was pregnant, her friend's husband and her boy friend in the car wreck that broke her back as a young lady, next she lost her beloved step-father Bob, followed in a few years by my birth and having to leave me at the hospital for a month while she went home until I was big enough to survive life out of the incubator, a year later she lost her mother who had lived with them for several years. A few years later she lost her her husband and was left with two pre-teen girls, funeral expenses and hospital bills. Yet, she plugged away, held tight to God and saw the cup of life as half full. I remember some of the miracles we saw as God provided; once there was no money for groceries so she got out the guest book from Dad's funeral to read all the names of people who had loved him and found a $20 bill - enough for a few weeks groceries back then.
One time I told her how hard it was to be single in a couples' world. She laughed and doled out some of her common-sense, practical advice: "Just hang in there; when you reach your early 70s, other women's husbands will start dropping like flies and then you'll get the deep friendships you need and desire." She said the first 20 years after Dad's death the isolation of being single in a coupled world had been very hard for her. Another "momism" that was instrumental in my parenting was when my oldest was going through his terrible two's and he'd tried my patience all day, "Honey, if you can't control him when he's 2 and you can pick him up, what are you going to do when he turns 14 and borrows the car keys?" Another that was beneficial was after a day when I'd threatened my child punishment several dozen times, and Mom gently said, "Debbie, do you realize how many times you've told your son there would be punishment and he didn't get punished? What you've really taught him is that it's okay to lie." I know there were many more, but that's the ones that come to mind today.
I'm sure I'll be blogging more about Mom in the next few weeks as I process her death.
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After a complimentary upgrade to executive class for the last leg of the journey back to Newfoundland, I arrived, 2 hours late, bone-tired, rain-drenched and glad to be in my own bed; but sad because I wouldn't be there to share Mom's home-going and frustrated because my disease hinders me from travel medical insurance of longer than 2 weeks. It's too dark to see my yard from my car; but during a break in the rain, I carry my sopping wet bags into the house, check e-mail, call my sister at the care facility to assure her I arrived home safely. I lecture her to follow the direction of the hospice care team who told us how important it is that we take time off, use volunteers to sit with Mom so she can get adequate sleep, rest and just re-energized for the demanding work of sitting and waiting and loving and caring and remembering.
Moms are always Moms. About 20 minutes after Pat tells Mom that I'm home safely, she passes to heaven gently in her sleep... knowing her youngest child is home safely. Pat says she just stopped breathing. She died like she lived: no fuss, no muss, no drama. Continuing to teach her children through her death and even now as we process it.
I am grateful for the most marvelous slumber party with us "girls." Mom, Pat, Gypsy and me. It was my night to hold Mom's hand and Pat and Gypsy's night to do some Mother-Daughter fun; plus Pat would get to sleep in a bed instead of in the chair or a thin mat on the floor. Pat and Gypsy had attended an outdoor theatre of Les Miserables and had a wonderful time. I texted them just as it was over (God's perfect timing) Gypsy drove Pat straight there at midnight. I'm so grateful for this holy slumber party. Mom laid in bed and talked to us, talked to Dad, talked to her mother and others who had gone before. We laughed, we joked, we sang old hymns, we sang songs Mom had sung to us as children. We cried. We held each other. We talked about the now, the past and the future - things seen and things unseen. We let Mom know she was such a good Mom that we knew we were strong enough to live our life without her tender care. We played peek-a-boo. We were loud. We were quiet. We were comfortably and companionably silent. The staff did the minimum to give us this wonderful time together uninterrupted. Nobody complained about the noise. Pat even tried to start a pillow fight. We prayed together, and Mom shouted "Amen, amen and amen" at the end - the loudest her voice had been since I arrived. That opened a round of the spiritual song "A-men, A-men, A-men, A-men." before Pat and Gypsy left shortly after 2:30 AM. It was a wonderful, blessed, bonding time of pure grace from our heavenly Father. Thank you, Father God, for this time of healing and bonding; I know it's a beautiful love gift you granted us girls.
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Father Gerald often talks about Christ in us the hope of glory; and how we are in Christ. He has often said how important knowing that truth is when we lose a loved one to death. He says that person may be closer to us in death then they were in life - because we are both part of the body of Christ. Father Peter was presiding today's mass. I tried to arrive a few minutes late, so I could sneak in and not have anybody ask me how Mom was - because (1) I didn't want to cry in public and (2) Sunday is about Christ and not about me. Donna was the first I saw and she asked and held me. Father Peter was presiding and ready to start of the liturgy but waited a second to ask me. He said at the prayer before the readings that today's liturgy would be dedicated to Mom. That meant a lot to me. His homily was about the Lord's prayer and he talked about how some people who are our nemesis are gifts from God to help us grow and to help us pray. (not in the beautiful context it was presented but my rough synopsis). As the liturgy proceeded, I started to sense Mom's presence as part of the body of Christ and the unity that is found in Him. It was very comforting and reassuring. As some dear friends took me out to dinner after church, I realized ... well, I'll start a new paragraph and put it into context.
If you're female and have been through the terrible two's or through puberty - then you understand the "mother as a nemesis" thoughts. Some of us let go of that mind-set easier then others. I won't say Mom was a perfect mother or I was a perfect daughter - I want to remember her for who she is with her gifts and her faults recognized because those are what made her unique and herself. One of the things she said on the slumber party night was, "Ory told me all the horrible things you've been through and I had no idea about them or what a strong and courageous woman you'd become." That night Mom started to see me for who I am (warts and all) and I started to see her for who she is. We dropped our own neediness, wants, agendas, expectations and hurts; something new was placed inside me and I presume her. A gift from God; a gift of healing and restitution.
Like the above poem.... she is an object of beauty and strength.
I'm honored to be her daughter. I'm honored she lives in the unity of the Spirit - in Christ, Christ in her, and both in me.
I wish I could call you and tell you, Mom. But I know you know.
