April 2007 Archives

Mother’s Day is in two weeks and I think it will be my mother’s last. Lasts…. I remember my daughter’s senior year of lasts, but this really is lasts.

The older I grow the more I realize grieving is not something to get over or to deal with so one can move on…grieving is ongoing with new depths of feelings. One loss brings up past losses that drop tears and quickly shift the priority of my “to do list”.

I can barely type the word death. My mom’s wishes and details seem to be in order since we have talked about her wants but it doesn’t matter to me now. I just notice how I don’t want to get closer at times because I would miss her more and at the same time I want all the time I can have with her. Discomfort for me and still I want to show up with her.

Surprise stories have come from her simply by sitting with her or talking on the phone….dating and her marrying my dad who died eleven years ago…Writing that number seems false….it can’t be eleven years…feels like two.

Mother’s Day brings memories for all of us. I wonder how the LASTS….affected you?

“The conversation is not about the relationship, it IS the relationship”
David Whyte

Karen, a single empty nester, did not have an Easter day so she went to a photography exhibit. She called me on the cell, “Natalie I drove thirty five minutes to a vacation. The people with maps and cameras walking by me are speaking French, Spanish, German, Italian, and English. I got here when the museum opened and stayed two hours. I didn’t have to talk. I didn’t have to be with anyone even though I thought I would be lonely today since I didn’t have plans. I had conversations with myself and lots of listening to strangers. Yes, crying kids in strollers too, which made me so happy I didn’t have to deal with soothing or exiting. I’m just leaving you this long happy message because now it is my new experience and you planted the spring seed. So keep passing it on as will I. Thanks.”

Sometimes I don’t hear my cell or see a signal that a message was left, but I sure am glad on this cloudy morning that I got the conversation she was chatting to me.

Priorities needs and values wind through even a closed door when empty nesters deal with aging parents.

Mary shared her tears and little girl self while we had our phone consultation.

Her uncle died, her mother’s friend, and mother in law turned blue but warmed all in two weeks. These loving people were in their 80’s. Her own mother was dealing with severe pain untouched by medicine.

“I don’t do well with loss,” she sobbed. Her precious vulnerability and grieving sat in her lap. “I am scared of not having enough time or worse having my one child watch me suffer, and I feel the suffering as an ending to my life. What shoulder will my child weep on? Will I have no money for care? Will I be alone? Will I miss my parents too much and become someone I don’t know?

Questions and pain and naturally feeling out of control….weeping, sobbing, begging for the night to let her sleep, Mary in another phone chat said, “ I understand now that I can’t plan answers for all my sorrows and fears, but I can talk about death and how I want my ending to go and get my papers in order. I can practice being in the moment and checking in with myself all through the day and night by saying…Mary how are you doing and what do you need right now.