My mother died 8 years ago today. We had a complicated relationship, as do most mothers and daughters, I guess. I never truly believed she loved me until about a week before she died. I had just driven to Corpus from Austin, I was dog tired, and I just went and laid down on the bed with her. We looked at each other for about 5 minutes, and for the first time the only thing I saw shining out of her eyes was love.
We kids sat out in the dining room and played a rowdy game of poker the night before she died. My whole family is super competitive, except for me. So there was shouting and hooting and fussing and lots of bourbon involved. I like to think that the last sounds her concious self heard were her children laughing.
She died at about 10am. My sister woke me up at 7, to tell me that mom wasn't going to live much longer. I woke up my brother and his family, and we all went in to sit and wait. My brother took a shower, and I thought jesus what if she dies while he's in the shower? Won't that fuck him up. After 8, I went to the phone and called work; told them I wasn't going to be in for the next couple of days.
Corpus is hot in July, and it seems like it was 80 degrees in the house already....we just sat in there, and had our hands on her, and listened to the wind tearing through the cottonwood trees outside and the horrible sound that the breathing of a dying person is. I kept looking at the shadows the ceiling fan was making and wondering if to her it looked like the shadows of angel wings, hovering over her and waiting. Hope so.
Right before she died, no shit, a cloud must have passed between the sun and earth, because the room got pretty dim. I remember she exhaled, and we all just waited because it had been getting longer between breaths, but there wasn't another one. I had my hand on her foot, I was at the end of the bed. My dad just said, she's gone, and that was it. I kept my hand on her until the funeral home came.
She had been on morphine, and the first thing my sister did was go flush it down the toilet, and i still can't figure out why she did that.
We kids sat out in the dining room and played a rowdy game of poker the night before she died. My whole family is super competitive, except for me. So there was shouting and hooting and fussing and lots of bourbon involved. I like to think that the last sounds her concious self heard were her children laughing.
She died at about 10am. My sister woke me up at 7, to tell me that mom wasn't going to live much longer. I woke up my brother and his family, and we all went in to sit and wait. My brother took a shower, and I thought jesus what if she dies while he's in the shower? Won't that fuck him up. After 8, I went to the phone and called work; told them I wasn't going to be in for the next couple of days.
Corpus is hot in July, and it seems like it was 80 degrees in the house already....we just sat in there, and had our hands on her, and listened to the wind tearing through the cottonwood trees outside and the horrible sound that the breathing of a dying person is. I kept looking at the shadows the ceiling fan was making and wondering if to her it looked like the shadows of angel wings, hovering over her and waiting. Hope so.
Right before she died, no shit, a cloud must have passed between the sun and earth, because the room got pretty dim. I remember she exhaled, and we all just waited because it had been getting longer between breaths, but there wasn't another one. I had my hand on her foot, I was at the end of the bed. My dad just said, she's gone, and that was it. I kept my hand on her until the funeral home came.
She had been on morphine, and the first thing my sister did was go flush it down the toilet, and i still can't figure out why she did that.
your mom died with all of her loved ones around. i think we would all like to go that way.
i am glad that you finally saw the love in her eyes, that you had been missing all of your life.
here's to your mom