Remembering moms
Beautifully written memories, these blogs and comments. Thank you for posting them, and the pictures. Aunt Mary clearly left quite a legacy.
I remember asking Annie Tracy once if she still missed her mother. Aunt Helen had probably been dead about 10 years by then, and was not herself for years and years before that, but Annie looked at me with incredulous surprise and said, "Of course I do. I miss her every day. Every single day."
I remember the day my mother died. I was living in NYC but was spending the weekend on Long Island with a friend who had a pool. Saturday, June 14 1980. I'd had some weird things happen with my mother, like the time I woke in the middle of the night with this vision of her face all misshapen - she looked like Edvard Munch's "The Scream" - and when I called the nursing home first thing in the morning they told me she'd fallen out of bed during the night and dislocated her jaw.
She had been in the nursing home six weeks by June 14. She couldn't sit up, her hands were clenched into tight fists so we had to keep cutting her fingernails, she couldn't talk anymore. But the doctor said her heart was so strong she could live another 20 years. I was underwater in my friend's pool and I heard my mother, plain as day, and I saw her strapped in her wheelchair, her head on her chest, facing a window that looked onto a brick wall. I saw her struggle for breath, then get still. And then this amazing picture of her coming out of that sick body and reaching her arms way out with a huge smile on her face, like someone stretching after a long nap, like her old self, radiant and healthy and happy. I came up from underwater - it all happened in seconds - and the first thing I saw was a huge clock under the diving board. It was 2 minutes after two.
I told my friend I had to leave. This was before answering machines or cell phones. Took the train back to New York, spent an hour or so in St. Patrick's, went home to my apartment and sat on the floor. When Nancy called, she said mom died around 2.
I still miss her. And I swear, sometimes, she is right here with me. Dad, too. But that's another story.
I remember asking Annie Tracy once if she still missed her mother. Aunt Helen had probably been dead about 10 years by then, and was not herself for years and years before that, but Annie looked at me with incredulous surprise and said, "Of course I do. I miss her every day. Every single day."
I remember the day my mother died. I was living in NYC but was spending the weekend on Long Island with a friend who had a pool. Saturday, June 14 1980. I'd had some weird things happen with my mother, like the time I woke in the middle of the night with this vision of her face all misshapen - she looked like Edvard Munch's "The Scream" - and when I called the nursing home first thing in the morning they told me she'd fallen out of bed during the night and dislocated her jaw.
She had been in the nursing home six weeks by June 14. She couldn't sit up, her hands were clenched into tight fists so we had to keep cutting her fingernails, she couldn't talk anymore. But the doctor said her heart was so strong she could live another 20 years. I was underwater in my friend's pool and I heard my mother, plain as day, and I saw her strapped in her wheelchair, her head on her chest, facing a window that looked onto a brick wall. I saw her struggle for breath, then get still. And then this amazing picture of her coming out of that sick body and reaching her arms way out with a huge smile on her face, like someone stretching after a long nap, like her old self, radiant and healthy and happy. I came up from underwater - it all happened in seconds - and the first thing I saw was a huge clock under the diving board. It was 2 minutes after two.
I told my friend I had to leave. This was before answering machines or cell phones. Took the train back to New York, spent an hour or so in St. Patrick's, went home to my apartment and sat on the floor. When Nancy called, she said mom died around 2.
I still miss her. And I swear, sometimes, she is right here with me. Dad, too. But that's another story.
posted by tica at 3/14/2006 09:53:00 AM
5 Comments:
Tica... that's a wonderous happening. I had the same sort of vision/visit on my birthday the year my mom died. I was working in the garden that day. The wind chime was sounding in the wind. All of a sudden I'm watching myself work in the garden, sort of like an out-of-body experience, and there's a tune being played on the wind chime. My mother was a pianist. I was sort of lifted away and I listened to her song, a birthday present for me. I'll never forget it. Thanks for the opportunity to tell my mom story.
That’s one beautiful and extraordinary experience, Tica. It must be such a treasured memory for you. The world of men (human beings) seems to sit precariously between the physical and the metaphysical worlds. Our eternal predicament is owing allegiance to both and forever being jostled between the two. With experiences like yours (and Mary's) we realize how close to us lies the world of the spirit and how encouraging is it to keep ourselves open to it.
Oh, yeah. I want to add that I discuss things with Mary S. on a regular basis. I feel she’s listening and will provide feedback if I’m tuned in.
What a beautiful thing, a birthday song on a wind chime. That is lovely, I have a huge grin on my face just thinking of it. Thanks, Mary.
i'm not a heaven or hell or after life sort. nothing but jive to keep the heathens on the tether. the dead are kept alive by those of us still living. by us remembering them and silently seeking their counsel. i think the experiences of tica and mary are proof of this. you are never far from your mother.
they ought to start a new religion with our dead mothers as gods. maybe that would keep us in line.
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