LOSING MOM - Part 37

Mom was unusually wakeful that afternoon, so while Lib was back at the apartment packing, I took advantage of the opportunity to reassure her, as I’d promised myself I would after the scene with the chaplain earlier that day, that despite all my talk about energy and such, I had never stopped believing in God.

‘You know, Mom,” I began hesitantly, not exactly sure where to start. “Whatever else I may have ever said, I want you to know I’ve always believed in God. And Jesus. I just know he’ll be there waiting for you. With Dad, and Billy...Uncle Bob…” I let my voice trail off, nervous to say too much and confuse her even more than it seemed I already had.

My words hung in the air, little bubbles of spiritual faith floating around between us in the quiet room. For a minute I wasn’t sure Mom had heard, her eyes focused as they were on something, or maybe nothing, outside the window, but then she turned her gaze toward me and, with the tiniest hint of a smile, whispered, ‘I hope so.”

Smoothing a few stray wisps of white hair off her forehead, I pulled the bed covers up over her oh-so-frail shoulders, then leaned in to kiss her gaunt cheek. “I know so,” I murmured close to her ear, "they'll all be so happy to see you."

She drifted off then and as I watched her sleep, I hoped more than anything that I was right. That Dad and Billy, Uncle Bob, Grandmom and Granddad and, yes, maybe even Jesus, would all be there waiting on the other side, enveloping her back into what I could only imagine was an enormous, ever-expanding bubble filled with all the love they’d shared with her when they were alive.

Because, honestly, how could all those people Mom had loved and who had loved her have just disappeared when they died? They had to be somewhere, right? What would be the point if all their energy, all their love, simply vanished into nothing?

I was reminded of a dream I’d had years before where I was in a crowded room of people waiting in line to get somewhere, I wasn’t sure where. There were two men in front of me talking, and I overheard the man closest to me say to the man in front of him how lucky he was to be further along in the line, because he’d be finding out sooner what happens when we die. I tapped the man nearest me on the shoulder and told him, quite loudly so he could hear me over the crowd, that we don’t really die, because why would God bother creating us if we were just going to disappear? Over and over I kept telling him that it just didn’t make sense. That God wouldn’t go to all that trouble if we were just going to die and turn into nothing.

He argued with me for a minute I think, but then, as dreams are wont to do, we weren’t in a room at all, but in a plane that suddenly dipped precariously. I was terrified, realizing to my horror that unless the pilot knew what he was doing, we weren’t going to survive. The plane was going to crash and all the people on it, including me, were going to die. Miraculously, because I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to die in a dream, the pilot did know what he was doing, and was able to land the plane safely, despite all the obstacles.

Now, so many years later, sitting in my mother’s quiet Hospice room watching her sleep, I decided there was a reason that dream had stuck with me for so long. Perhaps my long ago dream-self had been preparing me for this exact experience when I would be bearing witness to my mother’s steady retreat from life, watching her energy slip away right before my eyes, and terrified of the moment when it would disappear for good.

But maybe, I thought, my dream-self was right and Mom’s energy wasn’t, in fact, disappearing. Maybe, instead, the beautiful, feisty, sometimes stubborn but incredibly loving energy that was my mother was simply in the process of transforming as, it turns out, energy can only do.

Of course, watching Mom’s painfully slow transformation process firsthand was about the hardest thing I’d ever done, her once strong body and mind fading into mere shadows of what they’d been. So it helped, at least a little, to imagine that once she was through it, once the transformation was complete, that Dad, Billy, Uncle Bob - all the people she’d loved who had gone before her - would be there waiting, joyfully ready to absorb her back into the ever-expanding bubble of love on the other side.

I would just have to keep reminding myself that even though it felt like I was losing my mom, she would never really be lost. Her energy would always be somewhere.

Maybe it’s kind of like her watch, I thought, the one she’d lost the summer before when packing to go home after her month in Maine. She and I, after a long day of travelling, were back in her apartment in Ohio when she came to the door of her bedroom, where she’d been unpacking, looking a bit flustered and worried.

“I think I’ve lost my watch,” she told me anxiously, “I know I put it somewhere safe when I was packing yesterday, but now I can’t find it.”

“Okay, shoot - that would be a bummer! Let me help you look.’ I followed her back into the bedroom, not too worried, at least at first, that we wouldn’t find it. Mom had worn the same small gold Tiffany watch for as long as I could remember, a gift from Dad for some big occasion or other, maybe an anniversary or birthday. Secretly I’d always coveted it for its simplicity and size, and would often put it on to keep it safe whenever Mom was in the hospital. At least that’s what I told myself I was doing. In all honesty, and this sounds so horrible I can’t even believe I’m going to admit it, but I really loved the way that watch looked on my narrow, hard-to-find-a-watch-that-fit wrist, so was perhaps subtly (or not so subtly!) trying to lay claim to it, just in case the worst happened and Mom wouldn’t need it anymore.

Although, in my defense, wearing Mom’s watch during those stressful hospital stays also helped me feel closer to her, too, its presence on my wrist like a talisman whose magic power might bring both protection and good luck.

Like getting Mom out of the hospital and back home safe and sound so she could wear the watch herself.

Anyway, back in Mom’s bedroom we looked through everything we could think of, but the watch stubbornly refused to be found. It just wasn’t anywhere - not in the elasticized pockets of her green, well-worn, roller bag, not in the bottom of her yellow floral toilet kit, or the matching pouch that she kept such things in. It wasn’t in the black and purple applique shoulder bag she used as a carryon, though we checked and rechecked the many zippered pockets thinking the watch’s black wristband might be hidden in its deep black folds.

“Maybe it’s still in Maine,” I wondered a little later, having put our search on hold to have some dinner. “Maybe you just forgot to put it on this morning.”

“No, no…” Mom shook her head, frustrated she couldn’t remember. “I know I put it somewhere safe,” she repeated, then added, “I could have sworn it was in my toilet kit.”

“Why don’t I call Sal? Have her go into your room and look around tomorrow, when it’s light out?”

“Okay,” Mom agreed, ‘But I don’t think it’s there.”

Sadly, she was right. Though Sal looked and looked, even going through the garbage in case it had somehow been thrown out, the watch was nowhere to be found.

“It’s going to turn up,” I tried to reassure Mom, and myself, after Sal called with the bad news. “It has to be somewhere, right? It couldn’t have disappeared into thin air. We’ll just have to keep looking.”

And though it had been 8 months since then, I found myself still looking for that watch whenever I was alone in Mom’s apartment, rifling through her drawers and bags, her pants pockets, her toilet kit (again). It just has to be somewhere, I kept telling myself. She couldn’t have really lost it.

Maybe I was crazy to keep looking, over and over, in all the places I’d already looked. Or maybe I was in some sort of denial, unwilling to accept that the watch was really gone. But deep down I just felt like the watch was going to show up, as long as I kept looking for it. If I gave up the search, well...then it would be gone.

So I just kept looking. It wasn’t hurting anyone, right? And who knew...maybe, just maybe that watch would show up one day because I hadn’t stopped looking. Because I’d known in my heart it was somewhere waiting to be found.

Sitting there next to Mom, staring out the window as the late afternoon light deepened into shadows, I promised myself that I would always try to remember that even when she was gone, even when I couldn’t see her anymore, I would trust that she was out there, somewhere.

Because maybe, like the lost watch, she would be just waiting for me to find her. And maybe, if I looked hard enough, and didn’t give up, I’d get some sort of sign from her that I was on the right track. Maybe a bird would catch my attention, or a song on the radio. Maybe a grandchild would look my way and I’d see Mom in their smile, or a glint in their eye.

And if I was really lucky, maybe I’d come to trust the signs I was getting so I’d get even more.

But no matter what, even if I never got a sign from her the whole rest of my life, I knew in my heart that, someday, I would find my mother again. Because if I was right, then she, and all the love we’d shared in this lifetime, would be waiting patiently for me - with Dad and my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my friends who’d died too young - in the ever-expanding bubble of love on the other side.