Anyone we love is too young to die.
~ Unknown
My 100-year-old mother died last night. Her passing certainly was not unexpected. But one lesson my old companion Grief has taught me over the decades is that we are never ready to lose a loved one. We are perhaps especially ill-equipped to lose our mother.
The mother-child relationship is at the very heart and soul of our humanity. A good mother is the woman who loved us, cared for and protected us, many months before we were even born. Her life revolves around us at any age, expanding in time to embrace her grandchildren with equal fervor. When it comes to her children, there is nothing that is too much to ask of a mother. It is from her love, selflessness, devotion, and tireless work that we learn the values to carry forward into our own families.
I was blessed to have a good mother, and all that she taught me by wordless example is one of my most priceless treasures. While we enjoyed each other, we did have our struggles at times; mother-daughter relationships can be complex. But the underlying foundation my mother had built for us was strong enough to withstand occasional storms. We knew we loved each other; that truth always triumphed.
In recent years, my mother has needed full-time care in a nursing facility. She had mentally retreated to long-ago days, to a time in her life when she was most happy. Although she did not seem to know me or my siblings specifically, she easily recognized the familiarity of love when we visited her. Her diminished mental acuity in her final years does not minimize our loss. My siblings and I remember her strength, bravery, and perseverance throughout all of her life’s many trials. Despite dementia’s inroads, we know who our mother was and the vital, cheerful, loving presence she brought to each of our lives. We understand with painful clarity who we have lost.
My life as a daughter is done. With a sense of desolation, I realize that no one ever again will fuss at me to put on a sweater or to finish my vegetables. No one will lie awake at night as she so often did in years past, fretting over some personal problem I was facing, whispering prayers for me into the quiet darkness. No one will ever care for me as my mother did; no one possibly could.
As of last night, however long or short life’s path remaining before me, I am nobody’s child. My mother is dead. Now there is a piercing new meaning to the word “alone.”
