gratitude-a-thon day 296: saying goodbye

Just shy of 23 years ago, it was almost Christmas and my mom was lying in a hospital bed with cancer in the lining of her brain. I was 32, and a month earlier, I’d been given a lethal blow and told that I had stage IV endometriosis and would never have a baby, unless there was some sort of immaculate conception. The thought of losing my mother had plagued me since I was young, since she gave birth to me at 41 and was so much older than all the other mom’s I knew. In Brookline, where I live, it’s rather common to give birth at 41, or 45. I even had a neighbor, who, a few years ago gave birth to twin boys at 48. But in Bethel in 1959, it was unusual and renegade, and honestly, it wasn’t actually planned. Anyway, I grew up worrying that she’d die before I was cooked, and it always scared me. I didn’t understand then that I would never be ready for her to leave me, not if she lived until I was 94 (and made it into the Guiness Book of World Records).

I remember that Christmas with unspeakable pain and 1,000 pounds of sadness and difficult decisions and vanilla soy milk, which was the only thing I could get past my lips (when I’m truly in despair, air is hard to swallow, let alone food). My sister Joni and I struggled through that holiday, and New Year’s too, on the edge of becoming motherless, with one goal in mind, one gift to give–to help my mom get to the other side as painlessly and beautifully as we could.

She stopped breathing, my mom, in the most lovely hospice, near the ocean, at 3 in the morning, as we raced from the only house I’d ever lived in, to try and be with her as she transitioned to the next place. We hit a deer on the way, and I do believe that’s when she left her cancer behind and moved on.

A few days ago, my sister’s sweet dog had to be put down. She had a myriad of health problems parading through her little self one after another. It was time. But it carries that same sort of holiday despair I remember from more than two decades ago. The wrenching pain of not wanting to say goodbye, but knowing in your gut, it’s the best thing for the person you love (yes, I just referred to the dog as a person. Have you learned nothing about me from reading this blog?) And so you help them, when the writing’s on the wall. And you cry about how painful life can be.

I woke up this morning thinking about the idea that my mom and Romey were together today. That my mom might be making a sauce, like the one I made yesterday for Jake’s first dinner home after his semester in Barcelona. I considered that my mom and Romey would have a good cuddle and she would give her a bone from the sauce. I thought about all the people I’ve lost and that maybe they would all play with Romey.

That was helpful to imagine. Grief, never quite disappears, always ready to rear its head when a reminder wafts through your life, like a sweet breeze on a hot August (or December?) night.

Today my boy arrives home and tomorrow my sister and brother-in-law arrive. This will cause happy to permeate my house, but it won’t obliterate the losses. Those stay with you, helping to remind you, in the unlikely words of Dr. Seuss, not to cry because it’s over, but to smile because it happened.