mama

I was listening to a woman discussing her dying father, that he was cold and emotionally distant. Her pain was real. I know that at the end of my mother's life, and it was a long long twenty-year ride to the end, that I couldn't see her for who she was, or accept her, until about a month before she died. What I know about dying is alot. I've seen many many families through the transition, and the only advice I've ever given (apart from the spewing of youth) is that there is no right way or wrong way. No proper behavior for the dying or the grieving. Dying seems hard. I'd like to say, given my experiences with the dying, that dying is hard, but I don't know that. I've seen two buddhist's die lingering deaths. One selfishly, one beautifully. (These are my judgements. I'm not a buddhist. I judge like a bandit....)  I've seen medical murders. I've seen husbands follow their wives in one day. I've been with a sweet little old lady as she sat on her bedside, waiting. I'd asked her what she was waiting for, and she had said, "Just biding my time." Until what? I had to know. The young are always in such a hurry to know. Its overrated.  "Until Jesus comes for me." she said. I smiled knowingly, nodded, left, and came back in an hour to find her dead. I've seen pain and joy in the same room holding hands, comforting each other. That I was not able to comfort my own mother, knowing all that I know, is something that I carry with me now. Its a little heavy, but okay. I was mad because she didn't take care of herself. I saw her illness as a product of intention. And anybody could argue that it was and be right. You can be right if you want. But what I know now is that she was afraid of doctors, and she couldn't, not wouldn't, find out what was wrong with her. And I protected myself with distance and called it hers.
 
My mother could dance the Charleston. There are times I wish I could ask her the names of obscure flowers (I still think she'd make up the name if she didn't know it), or fabric, or how to make our homemade, sugary fudge, and she is always gone.  The things that irritated me are so endearing now. It's funny what you remember.