Dear Mom,
“This is going to hurt,” you told me in our last conversation. You were preparing me for what was to come. It does! Oh mom, it hurts more than you know. Last conversations are often the most meaningful because of the significance of what is happening. One must hold every word that is being said and find purpose in them.
You died on a Thursday, almost midnight, and we are starting to think you predicted the date. For some reason, you kept telling Carl and I about August 31st, but with little context. It was a date you kept mentioning. Did you know?
I fell asleep next to you in the recliner, watching The Andy Griffith Show. I was in a dead sleep when I was startled and looked over at Carl and Terri staring at you and then back at me. It was distorted through Andy’s voice, but I heard the words, “She stopped breathing.” I attempted to stand with exhausted legs and moved quickly over your body. I couldn’t cry just then. Did it happen? Were you really gone?
I was told that your breathing went from being labored and fast, to normal, and then you had one large exhale, and that was it. Your breath left your lungs for the last time. Carl then said, “I have never seen anything like it, Chuck.” I was still in half sleep, but I was told that right at the moment that your breathing slowed, my legs and feet started to run a “Hundred miles per hour” while I slept, and when your breathing halted, so did my running and that was when I was startled awake. What happened there? That couldn’t have been a coincidence. I never run in my sleep. I know I am asking questions that will never be answered. They are questions for a dead mother who cannot respond. I have asked questions to the dead before, and sometimes, when the wind is just right through the trees, they are answered. Did you pass through me when you died?
I walked away from your body and went outside. Being outdoors, below the sky, has always given me the space to breathe. I collapsed on the patio, landed on all fours, and raised my head to the full moon and screamed like a wounded wolf. I don’t remember screaming, but I was told I did. I have taken time to process this moment and I do believe my sanity left me for a moment. I was in agony, uncontrollable tension filtered through my muscles and I wanted to smash the concrete below me. I was in pain. Yes dear mother, it hurts!
I took the blanket that was still around my shoulders and wrapped it tight and walked out to the grass. I remember thinking, “I need to call her. I need to hear Karen’s voice to know that I am alive.” I don’t remember a lot of the conversation, except that I was talking slowly and deliberately, and I knew that love was on the other end. My love was still there and it gave me some clarity, so I told her I would be okay and that I loved her and then hung up.
I then sat with the blanket around my shoulders in the grass and started to breathe. I knew that in order to bring myself back from wherever it is I went, the chaos of me screaming at the moon and the moonlight screaming back, I needed to meditate. The grass was cool below and then out of the corner of my eye I saw something. I turned my head slowly and about ten yards away there was a possum. It had waddled close and then turned towards me just staring. I stared back and neither one was startled. After a minute of looking into the possum's eyes, it went into the tall grass and disappeared. Later, when I told this story and wondered what that possum was doing there, I had to look up the spiritual significance of it. Most resources said it was, “Rebirth and reincarnation.” Mom, I know you believe these things to be true. You have talked about how there is more out there than we will ever know, and we just need to pay attention. Were you reborn? Will you be a mother again like you said you would?
Grieving for you started when you told me you had Multiple Myeloma. It started a couple of years ago as we cried together as you said, “I’m not giving up. I’m going to fight this thing and stay with my children and grandchildren as long as I can.” I knew what that meant. I knew that in that one single moment that you chose to suffer. You chose to show everyone what the word “grit” means. That is why you suffered during your last couple of days. You were fighting up until the end. I looked into your eyes and held them within mine for so many moments and told you, “Let go.” Your son could not do anything for you, so I wanted you to know it was okay, but you wanted to fight. You have fought all of your life, so I am not sure why I’d think dying would be any different. I think if you would have submitted and passively just decided to die, that the suffering would not have happened. I believe that. I respect that. You chose to slap the shit out of death, but we cannot conquer something that we all owe.
I thought I was prepared. I did. I was naive enough to think that because I have accepted your death over two years ago, and when we sat on your patio talking about your two month prognosis and I asked you, “Are you ready?” and you said you were and then asked me the same and I said, “I am.” No one can be prepared to lose their mother. No one can be prepared to lose someone they love. However, it hurts so much because we had fifty-three years together, loving one another. The pain I am in now is worth the years we had to love each other and build our history together. The agony of losing myself to the moon that night was worth it. The pain in my chest when I entered your apartment for the first time after you died, and as the scent of your home hit my nose like a fist, which brought me to falling in your chair and weeping in pain, was all worth it. Loving someone so much that it tears you apart when you lose them is worth it.
Mom, you were never mine to keep. I know that and I repeat it often. Hell, we talked about it. You said two Saturdays before your death, “I am eighty-four years old. I can’t expect to be here with y’all forever. I couldn’t bear to grow so old I would see another one of my children die. I couldn’t take that again.” You’re right, you couldn’t take that again. I took you home after Charlotte died and I was unsure if you would survive her loss, but you did for all of us. You gave your children all you had and then some. Still, no amount of time is enough. I want you back.
There are no more chemotherapy appointments. No more lunches on your patio. There is no more bringing you chocolate shakes and watching your eyes light up. No more helping you into my truck and hearing you try to cover up your pain with a slight moan. No more text when you wake in the morning or before you go to bed at night, just to let your sons know that you are okay. There’s no more calls on the phone with your voice telling me, “Hello hon, I love you.” There are no more stories about your daddy and Uncle Curtis, and the south you grew up in. There are no more poems where you told us your truth and ours too. There is only death. It came and then left us with a silence and void that can never be filled.
I left for the north woods this week. I needed to get out into the thick of the trees and simply be. The woods have always brought me solace and it helps me find answers and renew my soul. It’s been doing that since I was little and I am now older and wise enough to recognize that I am not whole unless I am walking or riding on a dirt path. I found some answers while I was there. Once again, I found that I am not entirely content unless my love is with me, at my side, holding my arm, and hearing her laughter. I realize that I need to return to the classroom and teach again. There are students that deserve my best and I will try to give it to them. I also have foreign lands to wander and more trails to hike. I want to have a million more experiences and watch thousands of sunsets.
In the woods, I found a renewed desire to bring my words to the world and I have felt like I neglected my novels in many ways. They became less important to me the past couple of years and so I did not bring much attention to them. In our very last conversation you said to me, “Keep writing and bring awareness to your books. They are important. They help people. Go and speak about mental health. There are people that need to hear your story and how you have coped. Maybe you will write about me one day. Make your momma proud.” That was our last full conversation we had. During your death, you turned your focus to what you wanted me to do with my life. I guess that is what a mother does. I will try, dear mother, if people are interested, I will try to bring them my words, written and spoken.
I told Karen the day after your death, “I have changed again,” when I woke up sobbing into a pillow, saying, “Momma,” over and over. It is true. I have said this many times over the years as I reflected on the deaths I have faced or life’s challenges. We change, whether we want to or not, when we lose someone close to us our trajectory moves another direction. That is okay. Change is good. It is to be embraced because change helps us grow and develop. We must listen to the pain and suffering and not deny it, and then make a plan to live the life we must. I also told Karen, “I have a life to live. My mom would not want me curling up in a fetal position in a dark room, sobbing for the rest of my life.” That is not who you raised. Resilience and grit, dammit. To have the will to keep moving forward no matter what, is who you raised. I will. I will keep moving forward and make you proud, but this heaviness on my chest that is not allowing me to take a full breath, will be there for a while. It is okay. I will keep breathing and release the tension that is now confining me. I will eventually have the energy to think clearly again.
It’s your voice that I miss the most.
I picked your ashes up yesterday and buckled you into the front seat. I drove us to Indian Lake and stuffed you into my backpack. I know you would have laughed at the sight of me putting your remains into my blue backpack and forcing the zipper to seal you in. You said that you wish you could see the trails I love to walk on. We had a wonderful hike as the trees swayed above us and the mist fell softly through the branches. You walked beside me with nimble legs and a full heart.
This is my last letter to you. I have written you almost eighty pages of thoughts and feelings about life, death, grieving, resilience, suffering, and love. In the words there are answers and there are questions, and with each stroke of the key, there has been your youngest child spilling his tears and truth onto a blank page. You and I often talked about blank pages and how they offer opportunities. The white of the page can be filled with stories and it can be filled with reflections, and somewhere within the words and ideas that unfold, there is healing.
I have a blank page in front of me and a lifetime of opportunities sit before me. I must go now.
Love,
Chuck
