My mom died in the middle of the night. She just stopped breathing around two-thirty.
My brother and I completely reclined the overstuffed chair she’d been tucked upright into in order to breathe and covered her up with an extra blanket until morning. There was nothing else we could do. As she laid there, head on a pillow, eyes closed, hair smoothed to the side…she looked very peaceful.
When I awoke a few hours later, her face was cold, but her body was still warm. I knelt down beside her and gave her the hug I hadn’t been able to while she was alive. She’d been so frail, so weak; I’d always handled her very gingerly. I’d touch shoulders with her and lightly circle my arms around her with a slight, lame squeeze. With her lung pain, I’d been afraid to do anything more.
That morning, while everyone was outside on the patio speaking in hushed tones about the business aspect of dying, I knelt beside her chair and I squeezed her as hard as I could. I rocked back and forth, holding on to her warm body, her ribs, her chest. I buried my face in her shoulder and I hugged the way I’d wanted for all the times I hadn’t been able to. And that’s how I said goodbye to her.
My mom is fading…like a solar light.
As each week goes on, she dims more and more.
