8:46 a.m. - 2011-01-03
Sorry
2010 will always be the year I lost my Mother. Always. I sat crying in church last evening, watching a little girl cling to her mother. I tried to recall sense memories of just that. I was busy remembering running some kind of toy along the pew. I was back east, so I must have been really little. Then, at once, a memory returned. Probably bored, I had reached into her purse and was unexpectedly scolded, shamed. Thinking back, I don't even know what was so terrible about that. I was not going to steal anything. But I was shamed to the core. There in church. Why is it that so many of the memories that re-emerge turn out to be painful? She loved me with a devoted, unselfish love. She was warm and funny and smart. There have been so many phases to our relationship. When I try to miss her, I don't know which one will come rushing back. She was so vulnerable, there at the end. She was so giving. Even in her delirium, she wanted to tell me everything I have ever wanted to hear from her. She wanted to give me that gift, take away any residual shame. I love her and I miss her. But it is hard to remember, because these painful thoughts capture me unawares. There are so many horrible choices there at the end. Choices between two or more awful things. This or that. Both bad. Both intolerable. I remember the look in her eyes as four paramedics carried her out in a sheet. It was the last intelligible look she gave me. Scared and vulnerable and wounded and yet trusting. She trusted me and I hope I didn't let her down. The hospice was horrific. Leaving her to die in her bedroom. I woke up with every instinct telling me to call 911. The hospice was mad. Like they owned her and were invested in her dying a "good" death. They were monsters. The hospital tried to save her. I thought she was coming back. I left a note on the board near her bed, reminding the nurses to call me as soon as she was conscious. I spent two overnights there, waiting. She never came back. I am overcome with sadness, guilt, remorse. I am sorry I reached in her purse, there in church when I was little. I am sorry that I was a disappointment. I am sorry for the times I just could not sit there and talk with her because I would go crazy. I am sorry she is gone. I am sorry.
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