The source of my life is a unique individual; my mother. Whether she is the ultimate mother or less than perfect, she is the woman who gave me life, who carried the glow of my soul within her body and brought me into this world. She left this life too soon. (From my journal)
When my mother died I was just twelve. So much of my life became a search for her – a woman I never truly got to know but wanted to know. The women I have encountered these many years fill in a piece like a material patch for a quilt. This warm cover embraces me with comfort – their stories make up the design and their love brings the warmth.
I also hope to encourage others to give honor to the history of women in their own lives and create their own unique quilt. All of us can be inspired by the great women of history who have achieved vast accomplishments in our world and our society. But for most of us, it is the extraordinary ordinary women we are blest to have encountered in our lives who have left their footprints on our hearts and inspired us to live the every days of our life. They understand us, they walked the same paths and they are open to walk with us when we feel lost. These women will never be asked to write their memoirs or have a movie made of their lives. And yet how empty and void our world might have been had they not lived – and more – not love. Our world became a better place because of their presence in it.
The day that changed my life forever began one spring day…
On a bright sunny afternoon two men dressed as firefighters were taking my mom out our front door of our home on a stretcher. I’m watching them as I stand off to the side to be ‘out of the way’ of them pulling her through the door – the late afternoon sun causing my eyes to squint. Her skin was jaundice in direct contrast to the white sheets that she lay upon and covered her. My mother whose skin was always a smooth, creamy white with lightly pinkish cheeks was now pasty. She looks unreal like a mannequin and I felt frightened as I had never felt frightened before. Within my heart I know life is changing and I’m scared of what that means. I’m a momma’s girl and I don’t want her to leave me.
While every part of my being sensed my mother’s imminent death, I was never told she was dying. I’m being forced to see reality – like seeing an animal not moving along the side of the road or a plant lifeless in the ground – the body of my mother is unresponsive – no smiles, no blue eyes looking at me, no reaching out to touch me one more time. The woman who gave me life; who loved me for 12 years was leaving our home; never to return. I didn’t even get to say good-bye! The ambulance took her away – forever.
My mother was taken to a cold sterile hospital room to die without family surrounding her. I assume my dad went to the hospital while I was asleep – I know my sisters did not because he called them that morning. How sad but that was the way it was years ago.
The following morning when the sun peaked through the kitchen window, I heard my father sobbing as he stood at the stove. Slowly and quietly I enter only to see a broken man; the man who is my strength look old and beaten. Through tears he looks me straight in the eyes and says in very broken words, “Your mother is dead.” There are no arms reaching out to me, no hugs, just a broken man turning back around facing his own pain. I stare at the sun that is now streaming through the curtains as my world goes silent except for my father’s words resounding in my head. I ran screaming to my room – to the safety of the shelter I created by my imaginary world these past few months. For a year I prayed to God to end my mother’s screams of pain and my father’s tears of frustration.
A year before my mother’s death, my two older sisters got engaged. There was a lot of excitement around our home; their weddings were scheduled for that summer; two months apart. My mother made both of their wedding dresses. The editor from the home section of the local newspaper came to our home and took pictures and wrote an article about my mother. Little did I know that this would be my mother’s last summer. My mother had been in remission from her breast cancer until after that summer when the cancer returned with vengeance attacking her bones especially her spine. She had to wear a brace for support as the cancer ate away at her spine. The arms of several chairs became torn or the wood scratched. It was much later that I realized that this was due to my mother’s pain. The pain must have been so intense that she had to claw at the chairs. I didn’t notice her pain in the beginning. She would not show it in front of any of us. I now wonder how much she suffered when no one was around and she safely allowed herself to express her pain. We had more and more visitors coming in and out; my sisters were visiting more often, and my dad became more intense in his actions and his reactions to everything. As the weeks continued, my mother became less active; and finally, after a while, she was always in bed.
During this time I was living in an imaginary world – full of make believe, because that world was better than the reality of my mother’s illness. I slowly drifted into my world of escapism with my dolls, stuffed animals and books. I recoiled more and more inside myself and especially at night as my mother’s screams of pain echoed through the house. My father’s frustrated crying often accompanied the screams. I regressed into my own private world to hide from the shear agony of the situation and stayed sheltered within my room. I remember praying to God, promising God I would do anything if He would just make the screaming stop and make things the way they were before my mother became so sick. But the screams continued.
I played with my dolls and talked as though my mother was going to be up soon, cooking, baking and doing everything she always did every day since I was born. Everything was going to be okay and my mom and dad and I will have fun – just the three of us now that my sisters married. I fantasized about how my mom would design and sew my wedding dress. But such was not the reality only a make believe hope. The memories or rather the lack of memories have haunted me all my life – even more so as I became a mother and then a grandmother. A huge portion of my life still remains missing and I can never get it back. There are times I struggle to remember the happy times because so much of my memories speak of her pain
The final reality I faced that day was that God had answered my prayers – my mother’s screaming had ceased and replaced with my own.