Dear Mother, I Miss You Even More...

Dear Mother,

Growing up, I may have been unsure and insecure about many things: my 5'9" inch height at age 11; being called what now is a "Nerd" in high school; questioning my academic prowess as a 16-year old college freshman; so many other things during my life---but I never doubted you loved me.

 And it wasn't because I was the "baby of the family," or even my birth order placement as the "seventh child." You were my mentor, long before the word became commonplace and often overused.  You were my Prayer Warrior, years before I knew about "Spiritual Warfare,"  and "didn't believe in the devil!" Even when I went  through my college-explored atheism. ( No, not really; college didn't cause that) . An insatiable reader, some book must have teased me with the concept, and I explored it during my undergrad journey. I did that.

So many memories of you crowd my heart, mind, and spirit. You were a Gentle Woman (gentlewoman),  my first teacher of grace under pressure, strength beyond endurance, and seeker of joy unspeakable and full of glory.  You were my first coach.  Remember when you'd take me to oratorical competitions for college scholarships.  We'd get to the venue early, so you could position yourself where I could easily see you. Using  your right hand, you'd gesture to let me know when I was speaking too fast or too slow, and to be sure I engaged the audience by looking from left to right.  How did you know all that? You'd never been in a speech competition!

Of course, you'd never taken sewing lessons either, but you made all my outfits for those contests.  You'd go to the coffee can on the top shelf in the kitchen; take the "El" train downtown with your meager funds; and bring back beautiful fabric, thread, and all the trimmings! Then you'd stay up as long as you needed to finish the dress and iron the seams flat so it looked department store bought. To  think that I vowed never  to wear homemade dresses again! Well, Mother, I long for them now.

No! I long for you being here with me, so I could again watch you produce your works of art.  Or  taste the best homemade mac & cheese, and turkey and dressing (that's what Southern transplants to Chicago called it, cornbread dressing),  not "stuffing."  Or your sweet potato pie. Relatives and neighbors in our near North side neighborhood raved over it.  For some reason, I never acquired a taste for it, but  when you moved to Denver, your youngest son, Sam, convinced you to make pie-sized tarts that he sold at his Glendale restaurant.  That's the point; you loved and encouraged each one of your seven children to reach for the stars,  Now, your made-from-scratch banana pudding, that spelled happy for me!

On November 17, 1998, Our Father whispered in your ear, "Servant, well done!"  The angels He had dispatched to bring your spirit back home to Him immediately obeyed. In the twinkling of an eye, you were in His presence.  No more suffering, physically or emotionally; no more praying for family and friends, or longing for your Mama, husband, daughter and sisters. He had wiped away all your tears, removed all your fears, and called you back to Heaven, from whence you came.  As you lay in the hospice bed, defying your doctor's prediction, you must have been singing,

"Over yonder stands the mansion Christ prepared for me, God ordained that I should have it from eternity; And I'll send a prayer before me, ere I cross the foam, Angels, get my mansion ready, I am coming home.  I am coming home to heaven, with the angels there to dwell, I am coming home to glory, where I'll never say farewell; I am coming to that city, never more to roam, Angels, get my mansion ready, I am coming home."

 Relief that your suffering had ended could not assuage my grief, my ineffable pain. The "Whys" poured forth.  Is this why you chose not to "waste money" on dental work? I know you trusted God, deeply and completely.  Is that what you meant when you'd say that God would heal you, one way or another? With gusto, you'd sing, "I will trust in the Lord.  I will trust in the Lord.  I will trust in the Lord until I die."  I know you did; still, it's hard, this missing you.

On the day you transitioned, you were semi-comatose. The hospice physician  seemed puzzled after examining you.  She said she didn't understand how you kept holding on.  Minutes after she left, the light bulb came on!  All your surviving six children and loads of grandchildren had come to see you near the end.  The only one who hadn't was your second-born son, Jimmie, your "spitting image," down to his gap-toothed smile.  He lived in Alaska and worked in the "bush."   I stood in the kitchen for what seemed like hours tracking him down.

When I finally got him on the phone.  I told him that you were at the end stage. I wanted him to talk to you on the phone---except we would pretend he was in the room with you.  He wondered what would happen if you discovered he wasn't actually there. "I'll hold the phone to her ear while (sister) Lucy strokes her face; she's barely  comatose," I reassured him.  And that's what we did.  Your last words to Jimmie sounded like a croak.  " I love you, Brother," (his childhood name) you said.  He promised to "come back to see you later," and we disconnected.

Early evening as we sat at the dining room table where we could see straight into the room where you lay, Lucy asked, "Is Mother still breathing?" I rushed into the room, felt for your carotid artery, found no pulse! Quietly, softly, you had gone home to heaven, "with the angels there to dwell...Angels, get my mansion ready. . ."  Indeed, you had gone home.  I love you Mother, with a love that cannot die because  Love is Spirit.

And Spirit never dies!