The Opportunity to Say Goodbye

The pages of my book are blank. A new year begins and I start the first chapter. 

As I sit here at 1:30am in a dimly lit hospital room, next to my mother's bed, I don't feel like this is Opportunity.

Her gaunt face, pale as the sheets, her mouth gaping open as she snores. I wonder when she began looking like my grandmother instead of my mother. The smart and confident woman who taught me all I know is in there somewhere, lost to me but for memories.  Digging deeper, to the bottom of my soul, I question, is this "Opportunity".

Each passing day I have seen her slip farther away from me, moving closer towards that which I so want to understand and believe in.

Is this Opportunity?

Are the tears I shed for me or her? She is my mother and soon she will be lost to me. Can I bear to let her go? For so many years, she held my hand, now I hold hers. If this is Opportunity, then I would choose not to take it.

Memories flood back to me.

We roll on the floor in hysterical laughter. Tears roll down our faces and our stomachs hurt.

I don't remember what was so funny.  My father shakes his head and leaves the room.

We snicker, then giggle, and choke on our food. My sister's milk comes out her nose. My father shakes his head and leaves the table.

I laugh, she laughs, we don't know why. People stare and ask, 'are you sisters?'  We laugh even harder. "She's my mother," I say.

When she's gone, who will stand beside me? Who will laugh with me? Who will comfort me?

Is this Opportunity?

She taught me to be strong, to be caring, to be compassionate. 

I will find the opportunity. I will do it for her. She deserves that. She is my mother and she gave me plenty of Opportunity, a lifetime of it.

Another day, another night, an early morning and again I sit by her bed. She's restless, she fidgits with her sheets. I stroke her forehead and she cries.  "I just want to go home."

"Tomorrow," I promise. "When it is light, when it is morning."

She nods and cries some more. 

I hold her hand. 

"No matter what", I say, "you're  still my mother. "

But now, I feel as if I am her mother, the roles are reversed.  This is what good daughters do.

She taught me well. She was that daughter who became her mother's mother. She stroked her forehead, she held her hand, in her own book, called Opportunity.

I whisper back, "You're the best mother ever, the best mother ever."

"I hope so," she says.

And I sing. I sing everything I can think of that she taught me. Her body relaxes and she smiles as she mouths the words with me.

"Show me the way to go home,

I'm tired and I want to go to bed,

Oh I had a little drink about an hour ago,

And it went right to my head.

Wherever I may roam,

On land or sea or foam,

You can always hear me singing this song,

Show me the way to go home."

I repeat it slowly.....show me the way to go home.

And I pray that I can do that.

Our yesterdays become what makes our todays and tomorrows.

She has a lifetime of the very best memories. 

Ben Franklin said:

"Wish not so much to live long, as to live well."

My mother has done both.

The first chapter is New Years and the pages are not blank. My book is Opportunity.

The opportunity to say goodbye. The opportunity to remember an incredible woman that I can call my mother.

 

  Patricia Woodard Hunt

My Mother