Mom had been in the hospital for a week before she passed, but I witnessed her decline over the last couple of years. The most recent photo I have of her was from last Christmas when she came to hear the Granite Statesmen perform. My quartet sang for her after the show, and we had someone take a picture, which I had forgotten about until the other day. Comparing that photo to the ones taken when she went to England a couple of years ago, I could see a huge difference. Mom was never big to begin with, but it was clear in the newer photo that she wasn't as healthy.
Mom was Mom right until the end. I was the last family member to have a conversation with her, and I was the one to call the nurse when she took her last breath. Saturday night, 2 May, I had a great conversation with her, mostly about her father. Her voice was the strongest it had been in the week she was in the hospital, and I thought that I was going to be able to follow through with my plan to write her memoir. I wanted to ask her about her other family members, becoming a nurse, coming to the United States, etc., all things I had probably asked her about before but had never taken notes on. During that week in the hospital, every time I left I had felt crushed, helpless, and I think she could tell that as I left her room each time. However, after that last conversation, I left feeling uplifted, as if things were going to be OK. I think she also saw that, and knowing that I was going to be OK, I think she decided that her work as Mom was complete, and she could pass away in peace. I think if she hadn't felt that way, she would have hung on some more until she did.
Unfortunately, it sometimes, maybe usually, takes someone passing away in order for people to come together. It ended up being my role to begin to contact family members and friends to spread the word. And although it was a sad time, I found it rewarding to have those conversations. Everyone has lost, if not a parent, then someone close to them, and sharing experiences with them helped me, a little bit, to be able to deal with the grief and sadness I felt. It was an unexpected way to find relatedness with other people. These situations are awkward, everyone knows that what they say or do can never completely fill the hole, or alleviate the pain, but it helps to know that people are there for you.
I don't know if there is an afterlife or not. I can't prove that there is, but I can't prove that there isn't one, either. I wish I could say for sure, like some do, that someday I'm going to see all my loved ones, such as Mom, Marcia and Joanna, Grandma and Grandpa, again, and that maybe I could get to know the relatives, like Mom's parents, who I didn't have to opportunity to know well. Appealing as that is, it just doesn't make sense to me. But then again, what is death, really? One idea that does make sense to me is someone is alive a long as there is someone who remembers them. So Mom is very much alive in me and in those who knew her. She'll be well remembered for a long time.
One other thing I've noticed: time goes by very fast. I'm writing on 25 May; Mom passed away on the 3rd, and we had the memorial service on the 16th. It seems like yesterday when Mom came to hear the chorus sing at Christmastime. But life does go on, and one certain thing is that Mom wouldn't want me to dwell on her passing for long. She was always about putting other people first, and I can only aspire to be half of what she was in that regard.
I love you, Mom. I miss you, and I miss hearing your voice, and seeing your warm smile. Those will be with me always.
