Mom
My mother's passing signaled many things in our lives--but her spirit still reaches out to guide us.
Mom came to us for Thanksgiving for many years consecutively from her home in Phoenix, to our home in California where we would gather with my older brother's family at a beach house they would rent in Oxnard. Southern California is so very different at Thanksgiving with warm temperatures, as high as the 80's frequently, and cool nights. Mom loved the time of year, though both of us shared a dislike for the Santa Ana winds so prevalent in the Fall in So. Cal. The 2010's are filled with those memories of watching my brother's daughter grow older, and our daughter grow into a young lady while grandma was in her moment, sharing the joy of that time.
Shortly after my parents separated in the 1980's, I was in my late teens and a senior in high school--a precarious time for most parent-child relationships, and mine with my mom had chilled. I was brash, stupid, ignorant and I was always right, of course. I also reminded my mom of my dad and that wound was too fresh for her to ignore.
My memory of the incident goes like this: I was standing in the kitchen near the dishwasher and mom and I were disagreeing about something and I made a snide comment that caused mom to raise her hand toward a gesture of slapping me. I raised my arm to stop her and while succeeding in doing so, I was aware even at the moment that it was the wrong thing to do.
I think about that incident fairly frequently, perhaps as a metaphor for the challenge of our relationship over the years and perhaps because of my guilt over the kind of son I was as a young man. And as time went on, mom forgave me--but for many years there was always a strain between us for which I remain regretful. I am glad, however, that it never stopped me from talking to mom--we talked multiple times a week--and it never stopped us from visiting her, or her visiting us. She was a doting grandmother to our daughter and she loved my wife, Sue, with all her heart. She was a fierce, ferocious practitioner of love and even forgiveness.
My parents divorced finally in 1983 after years of dissension and occasional separation. Mom never remarried and learned to live without a mate, though she was never without friends and almost always lived with a roommate. After moving around a bit from California, back to Ohio to take care of her mother until she passed away in 2000, then to Hawaii and finally to Phoenix, Arizona--mom found a niche there in the desert, joined a church, made many friends, sang in choirs and, as aforementioned, doted from afar on her grandchildren when she couldn't be with them.
It would be easy, and perhaps more readable, if I wrote that my relationship with my mom was difficult. Most of you would understand that, perhaps even relate to it-and in writing such things, using examples of poor behavior or treatment would serve as a kind of page-turner as it so often does. But mom's and my relationship wasn't that predictable, nor one-sided. Again, as aforementioned, mom and I spoke often, multiple times a week and she came out to visit twice a year, sometimes more, and sometimes we would go to Arizona to visit her. We didn't always see eye-to-eye, that is true and the cliche of the thing is as common as buttered toast, I suppose. But we always communicated through our disagreements, and we always respected each other's space on issues of contention over the family, politics, religion, what have you.
But that doesn't mean there wasn't bad behavior. And most of it was mine. I was graceless, lacked patience and expected mom to understand things that were beyond her. I knew that even as I spoke them. I began to recognize this in the past few years, and I tried to apologize to her. At times, I would dig deep into what I wanted to say and I would say it, but even then, I'm not sure she fully understood that I was apologizing. I should have simply said, "I'm sorry for being that way," just so. I know that I did that on one or two occasions, but now that mom has gone--I feel the need to tell her again. I suppose that's normal, but it sits in my heart sometimes and aches a bit. They say that the second year of grief is a bit worse than the first. I believe that's true--at least in the experiences that I'm having, and it's probably why I've waited so long to write this.
Mom was not always gracious toward me-but she was never completely unkind. She loved me, loved my wife, my daughter and my sister-in-law and told us so often. She wanted to be with us, with my brothers and their families more often. She lived close to my brother Jerry in Arizona for many years and played an outsize roll in raising his children. His youngest daughter, particularly, was very close to mom.
When the lockdowns and restrictions came, mom was instinctively angry about it and told me so. She didn't always comply, a quality that I adored about her, though in the early days I did caution her to take care in the larger crowds like church and choir. I realize now that I shouldn't have. By November of 2020, she was set to come to California for Thanksgiving and she would ride with us up to Washington where my daughter and sister-in-law were living and we'd spend the Holiday together.
A day before we were set to leave, my daughter called to say that she had been "exposed to the virus," and got a notification from her college about it. Neither mom, nor Sue or I cared much and we told her we still planned to come up. But she was hesitant. She didn't want to get her grandma sick--by then, it was apparent that elderly people suffered more from Covid-19, and my mom was 83 and a diabetic. But none of those things stopped mom. She got on the phone with our daughter and we listened to the conversation. I print mom's words here, if not verbatim, then awfully close. I remember because both Sue and I had tears in our eyes when she handed the phone back:
"Honey, I love your heart and I know you don't want to get me sick. But I've had a good and long life and what I want more than anything is to see you. I don't want to miss my chance of doing that. I'll do what you ask me to, but please know I would never blame you for me getting sick. It would be worth it just so I could see you..."
Hindsight, as the proverb goes, is 20-20. Should we have gone to Washington then? No--and the reason is simple. Our daughter could never have lived with the knowledge that she was the one to get her grandmother sick. I understand that entirely, though I know mom wanted to see her and my sister-in-law.
That Thanksgiving, which was to be her last, we spent at our house with Jerry and his daughter, Sue, me and mom. It wasn't optimal, but we had each other and it was a good gathering. We put the Washington crew on Face Time on Sue's phone and we "ate together" and talked.
From our house, mom got on a plane after Thanksgiving and traveled to Texas where she spent Christmas with our older brother, his wife and daughter. Katy was pregnant with their second child and mom hadn't seen them in quite some time. She reported, as did my brother, that it was one of the best Christmases they had in recent years.
Mom got home for the New Year and Jerry went to visit her. A week later, mom began not to feel well with a bladder infection and went to the doctor. Simultaneously, she had respiratory virus symptoms, though her doctor did not test her for the virus--which was probably a significant mistake, depending on how one looks at it.
When I called her, she sounded terrible and I asked her to go back to her doctor. Eventually, she was taken by ambulance to the hospital with difficulty breathing and pneumonia. She tested positive for Covid then, and the rest is a maddening array of lack of care, intervention with the drug Remdesivir, which caused mom's kidneys to begin to fail (a common side effect of the dangerous and ineffective drug) and eventually, intubation. Mom died on Valentine's day morning, 2021.
The part that you may not care to hear is that my brothers and I all believe she could have been saved. If they'd actually treated her--instead of following the public health protocols of intubation and waiting for a vaccine, mom might have made it. At very least, they could have done nebulized breathing treatments, massive doses of vitamin C, etc. They did nothing but watch her slowly fade away. There were few--if any--medical interventions.
Even at 83, we felt like we hadn't enough time with her. She lived a good long life, but as much as she said she was prepared to go and meet her Savior, it still felt like it wasn't time. Perhaps that's just grief and its impact. At her memorial service that spring in Phoenix, we eulogized mom as best we could and did so with her choir, her friends and the congregation of her church. The choir left her chair open with a single red rose on it--every time I looked at it, I got tears.At one point the pastor asked people if they would like to say a few words--and many did, some spoke directly to my brothers, our families and me. More than one person told us how mom reached out to them in their darkest times to offer help, give them money, a place to stay and something to eat. One woman told us that she had been drug addicted, homeless and it was mom who she first met as she was getting clean. Mom offered her $20 and drove her to an appointment she had. One after another, people stood and told us how mom practiced her faith, how she sought to emulate Jesus in her life, and what she did for them. I was overwhelmed by it.
Jerry was in charge of mom's estate, which didn't amount to much. But in the midst of all of her scatterings of papers, he found that she gave money to religious missions and aid groups. Mom was profligate, and rarely had a dime to her name. She died in a considerable amount of debt, but she made certain that she gave what she could to those who needed it. Learning this has been one of the most humbling things I've ever learned about someone, let alone my mom. She wanted to be the face of Christ for people who needed to see that--and by and large, she was just that.
In the Fall of last year, my brothers and I all met in Pittsburgh, PA on a Friday night. Saturday morning, we drove two-hours over to northeastern Ohio where we buried mom's remains in Strasburg, where a large portion of her family is buried. We placed her with her mother and father who are buried next to one another. I was the one to place the ashes in the small grave and as I knelt, I found a strange sense of resistance in the act. I placed my hand atop the box once I laid it in and prayed--and a rush of emotions and senses came over me. It wasn't quite peaceful, but it wasn't altogether unpleasant and the one thing I did experience was the sense that we were doing the right thing in bringing mom here--near the town where both she and I were born, and in the state in which all three of us were born.
She often talked about being "ready to meet Jesus." Her brother used that same language just before he died. Though younger than mom, he preceded her in death by a few years. She said she wasn't afraid to die, and it's fair to say that all three of us are comforted by the truth of her words--we know where mom's soul is, and we know she is living in light and glory.
But that doesn't change how we miss her so. It doesn't change some of the regrets I have, nor does it bring me peace to simply ignore them. I wonder what mom would have thought of my retiring from teaching. She knew I was planning it, but it happened after she left us. I know she would have liked Washington and I can see her now, sitting in our new home, Simon curled up silently beside her as he liked to do when she visited, her hand sometimes wandering over to pet him as she read her book, and softly humming a Christmas tune that might be lingering in the air.
Sometimes, when I'm sitting alone, I can see her face and hear her calmly saying to me to let go of the regret and the past. Love is greater than sorrow, faith is stronger than regret. And recently, that thought brings a smile.
Onward.
Mark, you moved me to tears. Both as a daughter and as a mother. Thank you for this.