My Mother (L)

December 1, 2008

My mother passed away last night at 6:43 p.m. The time clings in my mind like I'm storing it for a birth announcement, except for death, which no one does. But it is surprising how parallel the events are. Like the pain of labor with my children, I never could catch up to the rolling ball of her death. It should have been no surprise, as a baby being born from you after hours of labor should not be, we had pulled the plugs from her life support after all. The sepsis in her blood had staked it's claim and was not leaving. But I never really believed it would actually happen, I didn't. And as I stroked her hair as she labored for breath, I remembered Chris stroking my hair when I was laboring our children and how it calmed me. I wanted to calm her, but in my head I was shouting "come back, come back" and was running to try and catch that that moment could be real. A priest came, and like in a movie after he gave her the sacraments, her body began giving undeniable evidence that she was leaving and the moment hit, crashed and wailed.

Later I asked the nurse what time we we shut off the ventilator, and I found some inexplicable pride in my mother that she had only struggled for a very short time. Like the pride of a short push during labor. It did help to believe that we had made the right decision, that she did not suffer for long.

But what the moment gave us, we had to leave behind, unlike birth. And I find myself, not just an hour after getting home from the hospital, not wanting to wash my hair that brushed her shoulders, or brush my teeth that breathed the air around her. I want to cling to her traces.

I always believed I would be instantly shattered when I lost my mother, but it's more like I'm slowly melting and grief is dripping from my pores.