Where Did the Time Go?
I look down and see an old lady's hands typing. 62 years old, now. Wrinkled, red, veiny. Strong, even though they are beginning to look sort of bent in places. My Mom's hands never got to be this old. She was gone before she hit her 60's. She had very few gray hairs on her head before she lost them all to chemo and radiation. She used to get so excited when she would find one. It's a wonder she even saw them since she colored her hair so frequently. Mom was also big on wigs. Way before the cancer, she owned several. Most of them were blonde. She didn't know it, but she was practicing for her future.
I was 26 when she died. She was 55. Her only daughter. My only Mother. My first son had died at the beginning of that same year. I wondered if God was preparing me for her death by taking him first. I'd only known him for 8.5 months, after all. Like God was easing me into the greatest grief a little at a time. Losing my son, I almost lost my mind.
Mom was 500 miles away, battling the cancer that had returned and spread to her lymph nodes and brain. When my son arrived at 36 weeks, his poor little lungs weren't ready and he was overwhelmed by an infection that killed him after 24 hours of life. I didn't get to hold him. They had whisked him away.
Dad answered the phone when we called with the news. He sounded so tired. When he put Mom on, I told her my baby had died. She told me he wasn't dead, that Jesus would heal him. I was in shock, of course, but hearing her say he wasn't dead pushed me over the edge. I screamed back at her that yes he WAS dead! I couldn't believe what she was saying. I had wanted her to cry with me, to say how much it hurt to hear. But she was already too far gone in her own sickness. I know that now. It took me so many years to realize she wasn't in her right mind. The cancer was already affecting her brain.
I have a photo and tiny footprints to remind me of him.
I have 36 years of a broken heart without my beautiful mother.
I was 26 when she died. She was 55. Her only daughter. My only Mother. My first son had died at the beginning of that same year. I wondered if God was preparing me for her death by taking him first. I'd only known him for 8.5 months, after all. Like God was easing me into the greatest grief a little at a time. Losing my son, I almost lost my mind.
Mom was 500 miles away, battling the cancer that had returned and spread to her lymph nodes and brain. When my son arrived at 36 weeks, his poor little lungs weren't ready and he was overwhelmed by an infection that killed him after 24 hours of life. I didn't get to hold him. They had whisked him away.
Dad answered the phone when we called with the news. He sounded so tired. When he put Mom on, I told her my baby had died. She told me he wasn't dead, that Jesus would heal him. I was in shock, of course, but hearing her say he wasn't dead pushed me over the edge. I screamed back at her that yes he WAS dead! I couldn't believe what she was saying. I had wanted her to cry with me, to say how much it hurt to hear. But she was already too far gone in her own sickness. I know that now. It took me so many years to realize she wasn't in her right mind. The cancer was already affecting her brain.
I have a photo and tiny footprints to remind me of him.
I have 36 years of a broken heart without my beautiful mother.
Comments
Post a Comment