Ending

After an incredibly swift decline, and an extraordinary show of bravery, my mother died on Tuesday, exactly two weeks after her appointment with an oncologist who delivered the news that she had cancer in her liver.  She was told there was nothing to be done to treat her illness, and she accepted his diagnosis with grace.  I would never say she gave up, she simply accepted.  I can't imagine the strength that must have required.  I also can't imagine how a person summons strength to do that, and to calmly bring her children to the same conclusion, when already weakened by a terminal illness.

It has been a roller coaster of emotions for me with still more distance to cover before I can return to a routine that begins to feel normal. I am now an orphan, but I don't feel qualified to use the term.  Orphans to me are children who must grow up without parents before they are ready to do that.  My mother spent the past 54 (almost 55) years getting me ready, and I think she did a good job.  I still am working through the thought of her not being around, and am often catching myself thinking "Oh yeah.....that really happened," when my mind drifts off to something else and then snaps back to the events of the past few weeks.  It's more surreal now that I'm not racing back and forth to her apartment several times a day to check on her care and comfort. 

One would think I would be sleeping better now but I'm not.  My doc gave me something to help me sleep and it helps a little but I still wake up early.  I think I'm adrenaline infused and it will take a while to get it out of my system.

But a little bit of healing has occurred because we have our two-year-old granddaughter with us due to a weekend trip planned long ago by her parents.  The funeral won't be until this coming Tuesday because of conflicts in church scheduling and the holiday weekend, so we were happy to keep the little one to lift our spirits.  It wasn't even a month ago that my mother was playing with this toddler and pulling her up onto her lap to cuddle.  Now I'm the one doing that, and this curly-haired angel is letting me do it over and over and over again.  I look at her beautiful, plump little hands, and I think in my mind about my mother's hands which became even more thin and aged these past weeks.  I held my mother's hands more than I've held them in years, and I am so glad I did.  Now I can't stop looking at my granddaughter's hands and thinking how beautiful the circle of life is, entirely captured in the spectrum from tiny fingers to pronounced veins and gnarled knuckles. Decades of work and life definitely shows up in a person's hands.

And now my hands that are beginning to look like I remember my mother's from 30 years back, will continue to age and change from life.  I can't stop it and I don't want to stop it, because the work they do and the life they live prepares me to be strong and accepting and summon courage when I need to.  I have a long way to go, but I know I'll get there because I have had such a good teacher.