I recently lost my mother. Even typing that sentence created pain in my heart and tears in my eyes. It was as though each keystroke was a separate stab to the inner recesses of my heart. A mother’s death is like no other and trying to imagine never hearing her voice or laugh again is too difficult most days, so I try not to think of it and yet, it is a constant. Like most daughters, my relationship with my Mom had its ups and downs. She and I were so different in so many ways and yet, alike in many more. In short, she was my mom. She would sacrifice so she could buy me a new Easter dress, while she wore her old one. When my girl scout troop was in danger of closing, due to lack of leadership, she stepped up to be a leader. This was no small thing….My mother was a city girl, born and raised in the Bronx. She thought dandelions were pretty yellow flowers when we first moved to the suburbs! But here she was going on an overnight trek with the girl scouts on a chilly rainy autumn weekend. She hated every minute of it, but she loved me, I loved being a scout and so she did it. My mom was first and foremost a mother and to her that meant always putting her children first. I learned that from her.
When I went through my divorce, others tried to put a positive spin on it, saying such things as “It’ll work out, you’ll see” or some such platitude. Not so with Mom. Platitudes were not her thing. I’ll never forget her reaction! She said “That bastard! I never liked him. He was never good enough for you! The hell with him!” Guess which sentiment I needed to hear more?? Mom was my biggest defender during that time. I won’t go into detail, but let me just say this…My ex decided to move to Houston and never returned to the East Coast again! I like to think my mom had something to do with that. She was a force to be reckoned with. During my divorce she earned her nickname “Hurricane Pat” and I loved it and her!
As loving and generous as she was to my brothers and me, she was almost more so when the grandchildren came along. She spoiled them rotten and when we would call her on it, she would say “You can’t spoil a child with love”. She also took care of her younger sister, who suffered a variety of health ailments before she passed away in her fifties. For several years Aunt Dorothy lived with us and Mom took care of her physical as well as emotional needs. Her parents lived into their nineties and she also sacrificed for them, taking care of them until they too moved on. She was generous of heart: one of those people who always volunteered to help someone in need and she was always dependable. In short, my mom was an amazing woman and I am beyond blessed that out of all the women in the world, I was given to her.
Having said all that, my mother was no saint. She had a sharp tongue and if you were on the wrong end of it, God help you. She could be hurtful during arguments. She had strong opinions and if you disagreed with her, you were treated to a tongue lashing that left your head spinning. While she was generous of heart, she was also quick to criticize, if she felt it was deserved. She gave up a life long smoking habit at the exact time she started menopause….Those were dark days! She snapped at everyone. We all walked around on egg shells trying not to get her temper up. My poor father was actually the target of her legendary temper. My ex gave him a quick reprieve, during out separation and subsequent divorce, but it was short-lived. My father has always been deeply religious and often admittedly came across as holier than thou, which annoyed mom to no end. When he would say “No thanks, I’m going to fast before church” Mom would counter with “Oh excuse me….GOD has spoken” her voice dripping with sarcasm. Or if Dad would not eat dessert or have a glass of wine during Lent, she would say “Oh why don’t you get out your horse hair shirt and put it on!” She had little patience for him. Actually, she had little patience for anything. She was a New Yorker. She wanted things done yesterday. Her impatience with my father, steadily increased over the years, culminating with her last illness. As she got sicker, she looked for someone to blame and that someone was my Dad.
Dad is four years older than mom, but has always been in great shape, physically and mentally. As mom grew weaker and her health difficulties compounded, Dad took better care of himself to enable him to take care of her. And he did. He kept track of and dispensed her meds. He took her to her doctor appointments. He cooked and did laundry. He helped her get dressed. As she got weaker, Dad’s strength increased and Mom resented that. She was an independent woman who resented that she needed someone to care for her and she lashed out. She would yell at him if he gave her her pills, saying “Oh please, just leave me alone”. Of course without those pills, she would not have lived, but that mattered little to my mother. She was annoyed that she needed to A) take medicine and B) that my father was the one who gave them to her. She would become incensed when he hid the salt shaker because she wasn’t supposed to have salt. She yelled a lot in those final years. But none of that mattered when she was sent to the hospital for the last time. My father never left her side except for brief periods of sleep in that last month. And my mother called for him and clutched his hand with all her remaining strength and it was then that I finally saw that 70 year old love story play out. They belonged together and it was apparent to everyone who saw them. As I looked at them, I finally saw it; love in its purest form.
During those days, Dad would talk a lot about how they met. He told me he could never believe that someone like my mother would even look at a tall skinny guy like him, let alone marry him. He told me he met her at a Catholic Club Dance, once he got out of the Navy. She was sitting at a table with her friends and he was across the room with his. He caught her eye and made a twirling sign with his finger, meaning “Do you want to go for a spin on the dance floor?” He then told me, “We’ve been twirling together ever since”. The stories he told were sweet and brought tears to my eyes. I remember watching my Dad look at my mom in that hospital bed and I thought how I would give anything to have someone look at me for even 1 minute, the same way Dad looked at mom. It was beautiful.
My mother was an incredible woman and we all loved her without question, but in no way shape or form was she a saint. Despite that, within hours after she passed, the steps to canonization were in place. My mother became a sweet, almost docile person without flaws. Mother Theresa had nothing on my mother. I saw the same thing with my grandparents. After my grandfather passed away, my grandmother referred to him as a wonderful man. I always wondered how he went from “Pain in the ass” to sainthood in a few short weeks, but darned if he didn’t. And now it was my father’s turn. He would not allow anyone to mutter anything remotely negative about my mother. One day my brother and I were joking about mom throwing a shoe because she was so angry. My father insisted it never happened. We talked about having a few too many Bloody Mary’s at brunch one time and Dad argued saying “your mother never drank”. He only speaks of her in the most glowing of terms, which is sweet but it isn’t mom and we wouldn’t want it to be. We loved her because she was so alive and vibrant and spoke her mind whether or not it was warranted, not because she was an empty shell of piousness.
From what I hear, this rise to sainthood is all too common when one loses a loved one. Is it because people don’t like to speak ill of the dead? Or does remembering only the good times, bring those of us left behind comfort?? Or is it because many people really have selective memories and choose to only remember the saintly attributes? Or perhaps they really are saints?? The church says that people up for sainthood must have miracles attributed to them. Perhaps they do. They must. How else can someone go from being a wonderful but flawed human being to being a saint devoid of any imperfections in such a short time?? Tis truly a miracle.
New Endings 