I wouldn't say my mother was always the easiest to be around,
nor was she without her complications.
But I will say, she was loved.
Emphatically,
Supremely,
Unconditionally.
Even to be mad at her,
was to understand her being,
came from a force not known to many others
that walked this good green Earth.
She was certainly in touch with a pulse
connecting her to a deeper source, even of her own.
That's why it is still so shocking to me that something that seemed so trivial
is what got her in the end.
It wasn't the cancer...it was an infection.
It came on quickly, viciously.
And we never saw it coming.
That's the hardest part.
On a Wednesday morning,
five days before she was gone,
she laid in her hospital bed of the ICU, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
I laid in mine.
My phone rang, it read 'Momma'.
Anxious to hear her voice,
I answered quickly,
quietly, knowing where she was,
and the fact that this was the first week we had gone without talking
since her treatment had begun.
I didn't recognize the voice on the other end.
It was the nurse.
Of course my mom, dialed my number and handed her the phone.
I'm beating myself up now.
Had I asked the right questions?
Did I miss something in her voice?
Could I had given her something more?
Why did I not immediately hop on a plane and go to her????????
...
The last thing she said was,
”I love you“
i replied....
”Get some rest momma, I’ll talk to you soon“
...
Perhaps I should be grateful she did not have a slow decline.
How was I to know?
She was in a full remission.
In this big crazy world of bacteria, and chemicals, and vaccines, and vitamins.
An infection.
A fucking infection.
The strongest,
most forceful,
powerhouse of a human being,
ended her chapter on this Earth
as the result of something so simple.
And no doctor,
nor husband,
or even love
could have cured or changed it.
It's odd.
And so we laugh.
Laughter is said to burns calories.
Thank GOD.
For both Mom and I,
laughing will always be the preferred form of exercise.
I will remember that...And look up.
Because I'm not working out today.
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