It is hard for me to find words to say. People ask me if I am “alright” and if I am “doing ok” and I always say yes. However, somewhere, deep down, there is a longing, different than any I have ever felt before laying there, slowly rising to the surface as the days go by and the reality of what I have lost begins to come.
I was blessed to be the daughter of an amazing woman, one whose example helped mold and shape me into who I am today. In the last eight months, during my mother’s illness, I was gifted to begin to know my mother in a different way. We didn’t have any life changing conversations, in fact we probably talked less during this time of our lives than ever before, but I would visit her daily, check in on her, help care for her, and just make sure she was ok. I was there to try to boost her spirits when they fell, bounce in on a cloudy day dressed like the spring to make her smile, and in the last month I sat down with her and shared with her my plans for my life, something which I had never done before.
Was this enough? No. I still feel that I could have done more, and I know I could have but my own life got in the way. However, my mother was an understanding saint and she saw that I was also going through a time of immense hurt and emotional pain in my own life and that I was trying to spread my wings and figure out where I should take my life. Did I have enough time with her? No. And daily, as the reality begins to sink in it hits me with what it means to never be able to speak to your mother again, to never run to her in excitement with your latest discovery or find in life. I have begun to realize that she will not be there on the day when I get married, or have my children. My children, like me, will never know my mother as I never knew her mother…strange how this pattern remains. Those special moments will still be precious but lacking.
As I write this, for the first time since my phone rang and my father’s voice told me the news, tears are coming to my eyes and the pain rises in all of its awful reality. I grieve, not that she is in Heaven, but for my loss, for I have indeed lost. She is happy and well, surrounded by those who she said good bye to in her own life. She is now rejoined with her mother, several dear elderly friends and relatives, each of whom she in turn mourned. She is happy, finally able to do everything that she has dreamed of for so long. I can see her sitting happily on a perfect beach on Prince Edward Island or wandering through the Yorkshire Dales as she always wanted to do. Joy is hers and the loss is ours.
One thing I know. My mother’s spirit and zest for life do remain on this earth…I inherited them. My mother taught me how to see people, how to have grace for them, and how to give up and allow people to make their mistakes. I wish that I had realized this long before I became 22. How much more I could have learned. Of all my mother’s three daughters, it is I who am the most like her. She often said it herself and though I realized the truth of this I never grasped how much of a blessing this was until her illness and her old friends came to see her and to be with her. Unfailingly they would look at me, look at my mother and tell her how much I was just like her. At first I smiled, then I began to hear stories and memories about Momma. It was truly amazing. I am honored indeed to be the one to carry her likeness, albeit with my own special quirks, to the world for a little while longer.
Now, only memories remain…Here are a few that I have…
Picking zinnias, one of her favorite flowers, in the gardens in the summer…
Learning how to make gravy…
How she smelt after coming home from a day at work when we would run out to the car to greet her in excitement…the sent of her scrubs, clean and fresh with a hint of something that I have yet to pinpoint…I miss it.
Long talks in the evening while getting ready for bed, just me and Mom when she got home at 11 o’clock at night, staying up late for no reason in particular. Then there would be nights when all four of us girls would stay up late, sitting on the bathroom counters, talking while we “got ready for bed.”
The road trips up to Mr. Moon’s Farm all during my childhood, getting up early, eating a fresh farm breakfast, and playing in creeks all the day; one of my mother’s best gifts to me as a child and teenager. The creeks, the dirty clothes, the animals, the insanity…how special it was.
Mother’s cooking…beef stew, roast beef, chicken pot pie, baked chicken with carrots and potatoes, cabbage and pork chops (one of my least favorites but she loved it).
The many, many things she did daily to make us a better family, to give us gifts, to provide for us…I cannot name them all. All done from a mother’s love…
The proud smile on her face the last time I saw her before her illness as Claire and I came downstairs on our way out the door headed to church dressed to the nines…
Her words to me as she had the honor of giving me my nursing pin when I graduated in May of 2008…
The one email I received from her…
These are just a few. For those of you who read these words that never had the honor to meet my wonderful, crazy, and insane mother I am sorry that you were never able to…you would probably understand me so much more. Anne White was a woman who loved all those who crossed her path, who was an angel to the sick and needy, who went out of her way to help everyone no matter what it took out of her. Yes, we had our bad days, believe me when I say that my mom and I clashed very often but we were, for the most part, always friends. She saw to it that her daughters were prepared for life, leaving only the work of raising Claire unfinished but she died in the comfort that her faithful friends and her two older daughters and husband would be there to look after her baby.
I could go on for quite a while but I think I shall end this tribute here with a few final words…
Thank you to EVERYONE who raised prayers and supplications for my mother’s healing and return home. Thank you to everyone who provided food, time, and effort in the eight months that she was sick to come see her and fellowship with her. Thank you all of the friends and loved ones that drove long distances to be with my family and me as we placed my mother in her final resting place. I don’t have any words to tell you how much it means to me. I have been awed and overwhelmed by the love and generosity that we have seen.
For myself, most of all, I would like to thank those friends and loved ones of my mother who came to see her during those eight months who took the time to get to know me as well and took the time to tell me stories of the Anne “Zing” White that all of you knew. It helped open my eyes to how blessed I am to be my mother’s daughter and how wonderful it is to be so similar to her. Thank you, for all you have done for me.
Finally, to all the Doctors and Nurses who took care of Momma, thank you for all your work and tireless effort on her behalf. She would not have made it through the last eight months without your hard work and dedication. I am truly grateful. Thank you does not suffice for all you have done but for now it will have to do until I find a better way to say it.
Love and Blessings…
~Christine
