Bitter sweet ending

It has been a life changing couple of months for my family.   At the end of April (2016), my mother mentioned that she was having some digestive problems.  By early May she was undergoing tests to determine the cause of these troubling issues.  Within a week she was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer.  On May 31, she passed away.   During that extremely short time in which she was sick and clearly dying, I cried and cried.   You do a lot of pre-grieving when someone you dearly love is dying, and the last thing you want for anyone you love as much as I loved my mother, is for your loved one to suffer.  Since my grandmother also died of Pancreatic cancer in 2000, I had an idea of what my mother was facing, and her comfort was my top priority.  My next priority was to spend as much time with her as I could. 


For my entire life, my mother has been my one true love.  Over the years, I would imagine her dying.  It was my biggest fear in life.  During that distressing imagination, I imagined myself laying down and dying if something ever happened to my mother.  The shocking reality is that life goes on.  I have been unnerved by the surprising sense of peace and serenity I currently feel.  I liken it to what "Peace Beyond All Understanding" must feel like.  Oh sure, my first thought when I wake up every morning is that she's gone and that knowledge brings up that lifelong feeling of fear, but I quickly pray or turn on a sermon on television, so that I don't have to dwell in that fearful feeling.  I keep waiting for the shock to wear off, and for despair to knock me on my backside when I'm not looking. 


While I wait for that to happen, I want to write a few things that I remember from the last few weeks of my mother's life.  One day, my mother went into her room and returned with her wedding rings which she then handed over to me.  She told me she wanted me to have them, and that if she did survive, that I could give them back to her.  I was concerned about what my father and sister would think, so I told her I wanted her to tell them that she had given them to me.  She did, and they are okay with the fact that her rings are now mine.  My biggest worry now is losing them.  She had the tiniest fingers, and while mine are not big, they are not tiny.  I wear her rings on my pinky, and they are loose, so I need to find a way to preserve them in their present state, yet keep them with me at all times.


Another day, I was seated beside my mother on the sofa, and she started to cry.  While I tried to comfort her, she said that she wished she had done it better.  I took her to mean that she wished she had done marriage and parenting better.  I told her that none of her children were addicted to drugs and that none were murderers or in jail, and that was something to be thankful for.  I told her we aren't perfect, but we could be a whole lot worse. 


One weekend, my overly religious uncle came to visit and stayed longer than my mother's tolerance level could muster given the fact that her body was letting her down.  He pushed her last button when he started talking about "end times" and how Obama was to blame for every problem in the world.   She was not an Obama supporter, but she thought it was not right to blame one man for every problem in the world (or for every problem in our country for that matter).  When someone is dying, they apparently don't give a damn who the President is, and they definitely don't have the energy to worry about the entire world.  My mother got up from the sofa, went to her bedroom and shut the door.  Within a few minutes,  my uncle and my father went to Sunday school and church service.  I went into the bedroom with my mother and crawled into the king size bed with her.  She started to talk about the conversation she had just had with my uncle (her brother).  She deeply loves him, but he can test her patience even when she's feeling well.  We had a conversation about him which was familiar, because it is one we have every time he visits.  She then asked me to go get her computer, and for me to pull up her pinterest page where she had a board of videos pinned.  She wanted me to play some of those videos for her, so I did.  We mostly watched southern gospel videos (some sung by Elvis, others by the Gaither Vocal Band, etc.).  She told me that if she didn't survive, that she wanted "How Great Thou Art" played at her funeral service.  I played for her a second line New Orleans type song for her which I found on YouTube.  She and I both really liked it, it was toe tapping music.  She said offhandedly, "You can play that too."  How little did I know that I would be arranging for both of those songs to be played at her funeral in such a short time.  I thought we had 3 to 6 months left together, but it turned out to be about 3 weeks.  While I questioned myself countless times, I did end up playing that second line song against my better upbringing judgment.  Who knew it would go over so well with those who attended my mother's funeral  Here's a link to that song "Cry For Me" by the Golden Honeydrops:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XzZsVWeR9Y


My mother walked an arduous path towards death, but she did it with more grace than I've ever witnessed.  Any time she was doubled over in pain, she raised her hand towards God and said, "Thank you Jesus for my Healing."  She never once got angry with God.




I'm finding it hard to write any of this stuff ... even now, six weeks later, but I wanted to get some of it down, before I start losing any memory that I would rather keep.  I'll be back when I find it easier to write.  


Oh yeah, about that British possibility.  We still chat, but he never came to see me.  I was successful in talking him out of wanting to date me.  I see now that the Universe had other plans for me during the time I would have spent with him.  I instead spent that time with my dying mother.  And spending time with my mother is something I will never regret, because she was (and is) the love of my life.