I miss my mother...

When my mother died, 22 years ago (give or take a few months), a friend handed me a poem and told me not to read it that day or the next, but when I was ready. She said I would know when I was ready. I waited until curiosity got the best of me and I sat down on the couch and read her card.

She told me that when her own mother had died, someone had given her this and while she didnt believe in such things as God or heaven, it did - eventually, bring her comfort and that she hoped that for me it did the same. I unfolded the piece of paper and started reading. Before I was finished with the brief lines, I was sobbing uncontrollably with the truth of it. But I also felt a small glimmer of hope, of dare I say joy? No, the feeling of joy came much, much later. In all honesty, when I read it now, I still cry because even after all this time, the pain of her leaving is so fresh.

But I'm feeling selfish too. Oh how I miss my mother. I wish she could see me now, that she could meet my husband and my children. How I wish I could sit next to her on the couch during the Ohio State football games - knowing full well it would mean my she'd pound on my legs in excitement. I wish I could hear her singing again. I wish... I wish... I wish... I want my mother. I want her back and that's so selfish - to want to take her from heaven and bring her back here. But I do, I want to tell her I'm sorry. I want to tell her that I dont hate her, that I never did. I want her here. I am not a grown up. I'm just a little girl and I need my mommy. 

My best friend is facing something that took me completely by surprise. She knows her mother is dying. She is bearing with grace that which brought me to my emotional knees and I wish to God that I could take the pain from her. I know what's coming. I know the feeling of being vulnerable, of being little, of being a child that happens when your parent dies. But someday, when she's ready, I'll share this poem with her too and pray she also sees the hope in it.

And That Is Dying

I am standing upon the seashore

A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in my, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!" There are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying. 

*Source: "Gone from my sight" The Dying Experience, Barbara Karnes, copyright 1986