Eleven

I continued my visits to Mom until I moved to North Carolina.  I was having gallbladder problems and needed surgery.  The surgery had been scheduled.

She died that winter, three weeks before my surgery. After my brother called to tell me she passed, I drove to Florida.  Walking into her nearly empty, white, sterile nursing home room was eerie.  She had been in the hospital having issues with her pacemaker.

She said she would never live in a nursing home.  When she was transported back to her room, she passed early the next morning.  She hadn’t even been in the nursing home for twenty-four hours. She was true to her word.  She wouldn’t live in a nursing home.

They say a mother-daughter connection can withstand anything.  That we are connected at a soul level.  I do believe that.  It was no surprise she came to me in a dream.  She would never leave without a goodbye.  That she wasn’t happy was only one aspect of her. 

Even with all her difficulties, she was a fascinating woman.  She loved adventure, loved learning about earth science.  She loved her books, anything English well done in literature.  She loved Shakespeare, often quoting him or George Bernard Shaw.

“Shaw would say this,” Mom replied.

And then I heard a familiar quote.

She is forever in my head.  Forever in my heart.

I think Mom let her children be whatever they chose.  She didn’t encourage me to do much, yet provided opportunities.  What I did with them was my path. 

She often told me I was a good person.

“True goodness” she would say.

“And so competent.”

I always told her how much I admired all the things she was able to do.  She knew she was loved by me.  Even if she didn’t like me standing up to her, I think she smiles down on me about it.  She probably wondered what took me so long.  I wonder, too.

Her ashes are in my upper woods.  I placed them next to a small statue of Nils the Butler, between two oaks.  She loved the mountains and would have found humor in that.

My children came down for the spreading of the ashes on the windiest day ever.  I couldn’t get her ashes to leave the plastic bag they arrived in.  After some violent shakes, out they went, back toward all of us.  I could see everyone turn away chuckling.  Mom would have laughed too.

There is a meditation bench in the woods now where her ashes were spread. I clear the area every spring. 

There is much I remember about Mom.  When I took flying lessons, she told me that was the one thing she would have loved to do.  I encouraged her to go with me once but she didn’t think she could get into the plane.  I told her we could get her in and out, safely.  I understood her refusal.  But I would take her with me in my heart anyway.

On my next flight, I said a prayer for her as I taxied down the runway.

“This one is for you, Mom."