Saying Goodbye again to one’s Mother
We pay homage to all our Queen Mothers.
The Queen’s passing unleashed a flood of beautiful memories.
My Mother passed away now fifteen years ago, though it so often feels like it was yesterday.
Such is the staying power of a fellow human whose impact upon my life has no measure. Oh, I know this is not unique. I’m just one of those soul collectors who finds it hard to release the deceased. This same measure of unacceptable loss defines my seventeen-year-old brother’s untimely death in Guatemala, my fathers in the big El Salvador quake of the eighties, my former wife’s gradual and agonizing passing in her bed in Illinois.
Yes, the list goes on. A soul collector. It’s hard to let go. Not unique by any stretch. This goes with the categorizing of those who have passed. Those we loved and, in a very real way, continue to do so. This will not address the ongoing and still roaring furious questions about what really happens to soul, vaporizes to zero, zip, reboots in the Bardos for reentry. We just don’t know.
As humans, it comes down to memories, pure and simple. I’ll leave the gilding of the lily part to the, um, real experts.
My Mother’s memory rose for the obvious and clear fact of the great Queen Elizabeth’s passing. I capitalize here with my Mother and the Queen Mother on purpose. Grammarians take a deep breath…
What prompted my Mothers’ memories were the glowing terms with which most have categorized the Queen. By most accounts, she was an unusual and very special human being.
To be clear, it didn’t take the Queen’s passing to remind me of my beloved Mother. A day doesn’t go by that she doesn’t come to mind in a teaching capacity, as a friend, as a kindred soul and guide in my scarier dreams dressed in her long, white, evening robe, her glowing silver hair brushed for bedtime, her face one of sublime serenity. A hint of a smile.
A smile so full it would take forever to fully understand.
From what one gathers listening to the mostly glowing recounts of the Queen Mother, there were similarities to my Mother. I note here that no doubt after the Queen’s passing, countless of us thought of our own dear Mother… My observation has nothing to do with the royal station of life. Queen Mothers, I think we can say it, abound. Certainly, my Mother isn’t the only example of supremely wise and compassionate maternal behavior.
But without a doubt, she was way up there. Of course, for me she easily sits at the very top…
Not a comparison, again, by any stretch, more of a reflecting, a kind of paralleling. Makes perfect sense as my Mother was of the same perfection with which they (to my great relief) refer to the Queen Mother.
Worth noting here now that my Mother wasn’t one to shy away from using strong disciplinary tactics, in fact these she mastered. Admittedly, her willingness to resort to the occasional belting of one of us, her errant offspring, over the years, lost some of its knee jerk quickness.
Day Sunday today. Queen Elizabeth’s’ passing. The end of an era. Just four days past her last day and so far, the news people are saying wonderful things about her. This, for inexplicable reasons, comes to me as a relief. Perhaps simple human decency. In a time when the media from all corners are sharp to cut to the bone and to trash. Merited or not. Sadly, it seems to be simply for the sake of destruction, wielding never before experienced political power.
&&&
“Okay, well. Let me go home so I can die in peace.”
My Mother stated as boldly as possible considering she’d just survived another painful fall this time in the hospital bedroom. Not minimizing the stark, in your face news that ‘you are dying…’ That same day we took her to emergency for an unrelated pain and while she was trying to bathe, slipped and fell on the bathroom floor. Luckily nothing broke!
This was at the end of her day long hospital visit. A chilly current blew down the green walled hallways awash in smells of powerful disinfectant, over head the strangely impersonal white fluorescent lightning. Looking out my Mothers hospital room windows to the plush, tropical garden reminded me of the manicured lawns of a pricey cemetery.
My Mother besides being an infinite of wondrous things, was also the embodiment of tough. No. I’m not making a case for being tough or her own brand of stoic, but if it were called for, she’d certainly be near the top of the list. I think she could have been the British poster child for exemplifying the good aspects of the ‘stiff upper lip’ and all that which expresses the attitude that assures: ‘this can’t and won’t get me down’.
After all, her favorite poem was Invictus, and from time to time recited it for us. From a list of countless passages, this was one she would refer to. It was an honor and yes, a privilege to have been raised by someone with her strong, principled outlook. Rarely, if ever, did I see her complain about any pain, about life’s’ obstacles. Her powerful Christian faith was exemplary. Though I chose another philosophical path, I all the same placed her on a pedestal as the strongest, most honest, most clear-thinking individual on the planet.
A Miss perfect? Of course not. Yes, I’m one of those who believes there isn’t the perfect human on the planet. She enjoyed her cigarette for many years, then finally kicking the habit (could’ve been what gave her the tumor…). The smoking certainly doesn’t indicate a bad person rather simply a poor decision. In her last decade, rarely would she miss having her glass of red wine next to her fireplace.
There were things, though, about her that placed her in a somewhat separate line. I don’t recall, once, her ever cussing, for her to have ever said ‘fuck that’ would have sounded as out of place every bit as would be if Big Ben rather than bells ringing there suddenly blared out a track of canned laughter!
Never once did I see her ‘lose it’, go ballistic over something my dad or one of us kids did. Sure, she’d on rare occasion give us the belt as was typical in those days, but she carried it out with a stern calm. Even when her and my dad’s business threatened to go under, did she ever display upset, or complain out loud about how shitty life could get.
It was because of her calm demeanor that she never took part in common gossip. That’s not saying she wouldn’t discuss another person’s trials or challenges, which she did with a clear concern for the individual. She wasn’t given to that strange phenomenon so commonly seen of the vindictive tongue lashing spoken behind another’s back, of anyone who disagreed with one’s way of seeing things, one’s politics or personal philosophy.
Don’t misunderstand me. Let’s suppose Hitler was the topic of conversation. She’d unleash a flow of carefully chosen well deserved commentary. Well stated sentiment. I refer more to what a high school teacher used to tell me was ‘park talk’, a reference to the appetite of many to devote one’s energy to destroying another’s reputation and worth. A spiteful thing. This was not her base.
Neither was she a wall flower on such things as Viet Nam. She did whatever she could to convince me and my older brother to take steps, big steps, necessary to avoid such a war.
She was powerful and yet allowed for others take on reality.
She allowed for another’s viewpoint. Something that has gone missing now for decades…
Only once do I ever recall her and my dad having a difference of opinion. It was a late afternoon on the patio and when she saw me nearby, she quickly hushed my father.
Sure. Perhaps this unusually high bar of handling domestic issues provided a less than ideal parental behavior blueprint. Some of us, many years later, wondered what was wrong with our marriages because of our occasionally loud verbal exchanges.
Funny thing is that she was Irish. Born in New York, a US citizen, but her parents were Irish. She’d visited Ireland over the years but was not born there. Her mom from the Belfast area and her father from near County Cork to the south. I too then got an Irish citizenship thanks to the third-generation law permitting me, a Guatemalan citizen, to become Irish. Does it really mean much? Honestly? Other than the fanciful imagery of leprechauns, shapely faeries and rebels against England and four-leaf clovers, there’s not very much that draws me.
It’s the Irish passport. This reddish, purple passport with its catchy Irish harp symbol wistfully stamped on its front is one of the planets most respected passports. The harps proper name is the Guinness harp. I can travel wherever I wish and enter countries without visas with the passport. I have never been to Ireland.
My Mother checked into the hospital that day surrounded by us her adult kids. Hardly kids, as we were all in our late fifties and sixties. My eldest son from Seattle was visiting, which was a welcome and positive addition considering the somber mood of things as we witnessed a woman as powerful as my Mother show signs of throwing in the towel.
‘Throwing in the towel’ asks for a brief interpretation. The words give the impression of one giving up. Nothing close. My Mother was the most stable minded and centered people I’d been blessed to know. Throwing in the towel meant simply the knowing of an inevitability, life arises, life comes to an apparent end. That’s all…
My Mother’s equally aging heart doctor, who also acted as her home doctor, reported to us waiting kids, all six of us and my son the results of today’s exam. They had placed her into one of those resonance machines. A series of x-rays seemed to conclude whatever needed to be found within my Mother’s eighty-eight-year-old body.
We simply referred to him as doctor.
“So, doctor what can you tell us?” I’m not sure what the others were expecting, but I was hoping she’d get a thumbs up and that we could take my Mother home to the comfort of her beloved home.
“Your Mother is just fine, all things considered, of course. We must consider her advancing age. She is not much older than me.” He chuckled in an avuncular manner. “But your Mother is fine. She can go home and just continue along with the regimen of treatments and please call about anything. I will, of course, be happy to come to the house.” The doctor excused himself and left the room.
Her doctor still made house calls, a traditional practice now rarely seen in the US, but here in Guatemala still practiced. Not as prevalent as years past, but it was still an appreciated gesture by a truly caring physician.
In my Mother’s private room, we sibs were all caught up in a sort of relieved bustle getting things into bags and preparing to head home.
Shortly after, outside we heard some serious voices. Quickly recognizing that our older sister was expressing a deep upset with someone. Soon we recognized the aging doctors’ voice. Our curiosity shot through the ceiling.
In moments, Ann entered the room while my mother was in the bathroom with my other sister, helping her get ready. She brought the doctor with her. He showed an understandable hesitancy.
“Doctor, but you said she was fine and now you’re telling us this? That’s not… That’s unethical. Doctor, I hate to be the one to say it, but you lied to us. So, our Mother is not fine. Do you care to tell the rest of my family what you found?” Her usage of the word ‘lied’ surprised us all. She wasn’t one to lightly toss an accusation around.
It was a mandarin sized tumor lodged somewhere in her lower colon. “She would most likely not…” He hesitated. “She would probably not handle the radical surgery at this point. We feel as well the very high probability that it has spread.” He blurted out and then went silent, held his gaze down towards the floor as if a combination of sorrow for our Mother and for having skewed the true story.
We all gazed at the color read out of the globular monster holding fast around her vital organs. I never expected something to appear as sinister as this thing did now.
Arguably the doctor chose, unwisely, this report to the truth to prevent us from the emotional hit the truth would clearly cause. As older adults, in an instant, we almost understood what the kindly old doctor was doing. We really could find no reason to nail him to the wall. We thanked him and shook hands.
We decided that what my Mother most wanted to hear was the truth. We all surrounded her bed, and the doctor explained the true detail of a tumor in her stomach. Which was when she felt there was nothing more important than saying: “Okay, well. Let me go home so I can die in peace.” She even managed a smile for the old doctor, who she more than likely understood was only trying to spare the family pain. My Mother’s smile towards the doctor was nothing less than a gesture conveying kindness. She wanted to make the old doctor feel okay about his ill-guided attempt at helping.
Soon we were heading back to my Mothers’ big house on Avenida Reforma.
Of course, the truth is paramount and no amount of personal emotions in favor of one’s patient should a doctor fib! Certainly not with something as serious as this. You can’t sugar coat cancer.
The doctor stressed, despite everything else, that she was quite comfortable and there was no reason to take her from her home and to continue the care giving we had been providing her with. She required little help. She could still get around the house, run her business from her home office, stroll her flower filled yard, going about getting things done as she had for so many years before.
As long as she was painless, we realized there was little cause for alarm. The tumor was there. As long as it didn’t torture her, then why put her through the awful experience of surgery and post-op care? In her state, it probably would’ve been pure hell. There were additional details that confirmed for us the best decision was to let things be now. Allow her the peace and dignity that she had insisted on and so fully deserved.
As grown adults and of sound mind, we, as a group, prepared for the inevitableness of the days ahead. We did the best we could. From Honduras I’d purchased some morphine ampules, some of the other sibs had bought pain killers. We got these not really knowing even how we’d administer these things. The old doctor, however, was quite helpful and in Guatemala, these preparations were not the least bit unfamiliar.
A huge blessing was that one of my sisters and her surgeon husband lived in Guatemala and made it their mission to care for our Mother.
Seemed ridiculous that had they caught me with morphine in the US, I could easily wind up behind bars. We could say the same of the other medications. We also knew we could count on our brother-in-law surgeon.
Our brother-in-law was a highly respected surgeon. He made sure we did things as correctly as we could, all things considered. He made it part of his daily routine to visit my Mother at her house and check up on her.
&&&
Some months later, during a brief visit to Guatemala to check in on my Mom she complains for the first time of some pain in her lower back. She asked me to massage the area as we sat on her patio swing in the late Guatemalan afternoon. The smell of her favorite night blooming jasmine filled the air.
She loved pointing out the hummingbirds that feasted on the plentiful flower nectar in her garden.
&&&
She faced her last day, final moments with eyes wide open. I was there, as was one of my sisters, along with a nurse who knew the signs. She said knowingly: ‘it’s time’. That early evening, she departed on gossamer wings, elevated to wherever it is we may go.
She faced death much as she did the day to day.
Masachapa is a beach on the Nicaraguan Pacific coast. In the late fifties, my Mother used to drive us out for an afternoon on the coast. During one visit while me and my sibs were building sandcastles and hunting crabs, my Mother floated in the buoyant sea water, the tide carried her out. As it was a weekday, we were almost the only visitors besides the local folks walking by going to and from their homes and the sleepy coastal village.
No one else was swimming. Already the late afternoons slanting bright sun streaked across the waters’ surface and lit up the coast in gold. Our bodies threw long eerie shadows that seems to go forever. Floating calmed her and often she’d fall asleep as she did that day.
We were alerted by some screaming from the black volcanic beach. Some towns’ people noticed my Mom floating way out. Around her were circling sharks. I saw the fins. The yelling awakened her and soon she too saw the circling fins.
Just as she’d handled everything in her life, just as she would handle death years later, she slowly, unflinchingly, swam through the sharks towards the beach. We watched as she made progress. The sharks were still there. Finally, standing in shallow water, my Mom walked out onto the dark sand. The town folk erupted in cheers and applause.
She calmly toweled off. Some of the town’s children got close to her as if to get a better look.
As if from her favorite poem, it could’ve been these words that arose:
‘Out of the night that covers me…
…I have not winced nor cried aloud.
‘Under the bludgeonings of chance…
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.’
She went to her final rest in similar fashion, on her deathbed that night in Guatemala, barely a cough, swam through it and then peace.
We pay homage to all our Queen Mothers…
