Maybe Tomorrow the Good Lord Will Take You Away

My mom passed away on this day.  She was 94.  She had dementia for several years beforehand so she was gracefully living in another dimension in a sense and I feel she taught us new ways of communicating while in that state.  In her own way she made the best of her handicap.  She still expressed love and concern, even for smaller things like your daily outfit choices.  Being in her presence in those final years was like visiting an Indian sage. She emitted wisdom from her being sometimes with only glances and others with actual full sentences that made crazy sense, similar to reading a proverb that seemed to be written just for you at that very moment.  But she held her dignity throughout.

I arrived the day after and her room was empty of any of that magic.  In it's place a soft quiet that filled the air with what I could only describe as absense.  

My nieces told me the beautiful stories leading up to her leaving.   They sat with her every minute of those final days. 

 

They passed a promising video the day before I left for Tucson of her cooing with her great granddaughter and I remembered how babies always brought her so much joy.  What a beautiful image and gift for her to see the newest arrival. And visa versa. I believed she would stay with us for more days.

I can't imagine what it was like for my nieces in the final hours.  Mom gave us siblings a gift of sorts where she had so many scares that we ended up dividing our grief and stretching it out in several payments over the years.  She was still being such a mother in that respect, using tools even in her condition to water down the pain.   She never put herself first.  And she lived a long time.

For years I dreaded this day.  I could have never imagined there would be joy in any of it but seeing so much family and actually watching kids play made you pull out from the sadness and see the beauty of celebrating a full wonderful life together.  This woman who touched all these people.  She was my mother but she was a wife, a grandmother, a friend, a sister in law.  She was so much to so many.

We were scared my dad wouldn't be able to eat but that didn't happen and thank goodness really.  He fainted once, that was scary enough and I wasn't even there.  Highlights with him were trying to help him dress when we realized he wore the wrong shirt under his suit seconds before we needed to be out the door to the funeral.  I felt so humbled to be around my dad at such a vulnerable moment.  He was so thin but tried to be very strong.

I wore a 20 year old suit that reminded me of something my mom would wear so I did for her even though I was very uncomfortable and felt like I was playing dress up

 These are my siblings above, all grown up.  And some of the next generation below.

After I left my nephew made his version of Power's Hamburgers of Fort Wayne, a famous haunt.  They made my sister cry they were so delicious.  

There was food, of course. not as much as you'd imagine knowing our family.  People brought food like you see in movies and we had the after funeral dinner catered from a local Mexican Restaurant who specialized in Sonora Dogs.  I didn't take pictures.

But this was the one time in my life that food didn't matter.  It didn't help.  It didn't soothe or even satisfy.  No one is ever ready to lose their mother. Words said to me by my mother-in-law and a sentiment I would cling to for the next months.  Mom was ready to go.  She needed to be out of her burden but nothing is the same without her in the world so far. 

 Rest in forever peace my sweet momma.