A Redux: Echo's Everywhere
She is gone, but all around me she sings
“Every Artist Was First an Amateur” is on a summer siesta in August. I will be back on September 1. Join me this week with a replay of one of my most liked stories.
This story first appeared on March 18, 2024
My story this week veers off-path a bit. I celebrate my mom’s memory every day. She lives in my heart and has left so many beautiful pieces of herself behind that come in the form of her art and her planted seeds of wisdom. My mom has been gone for 3 years now but the date that resonates the most to me was March 13, 2020. I never saw her again after that day. That was my last hug. In a few short days, we would all be in COVID lockdown and my life with her became Facetime calls. She had low vision but at least I could see her. Her hearing was not great either, so she wore headphones when we talked. I still smile when I think of her radiating smile and giggle while wearing the headphones: “You sound like you are living in my head”, she would say.
To an 86-year-old who lived in an assisted living facility, her life was about to become…even smaller. How do you explain what’s about to happen, when you yourself are not even sure? The answer is just like she was a small child. A dose of the facts, with as much optimism as you can muster.
That last hug, I still feel it today. I see her smile. I still hear her saying “Don’t be a stranger” as I left her room, crying. I drove 8 hours to tell her I loved her, to feel her warmth, and to give her (or maybe me) hope for what we did not know lay ahead. And then after a week of filling myself with her essence, I returned home to wait.
We talked daily for all of my life. We talked daily throughout Covid. The nurses did all they could to radiate cheer through their masks to residents who were hard of hearing, low vision, and upset that they could no longer visit with their friends down the hall or in the dining room, or join in community activities. Confined to a room, waiting for the phone to ring or a knock at the window was their daily life.
During these last chapters of her life, Mom found a friend that gave her heart joy and he was with her to the very end. This friendship that blessed my mom’s final days has given me immense comfort. We all deserve a friend like her Ron who insisted she attend every musical concert in the activity room or who just sits with us through the good and the bad. And when life gets really tough during a once in a lifetime pandemic, passes us notes of encouragement or calls on the phone while sitting behind the wall next door.
That last hug was the hug that has kept me grounded these last 4 years along with her endless laugh and her radiating smile. Each day we talked, some days she shared her vivid dreams with me, she slept so much to pass the time. Other days she wanted to know what flowers were growing in my farm garden…Fairy Flowers, whispering their little secrets.
