And With the Blink of an Eye...

…and the quiet whisper of a faint breath… she was gone. Just.like.that.

I knew it was coming. I’ve known it since December. I’ve been quietly preparing people. I have known. But when you show up at school and you see the Mom who sent you the note last night about the Annointing of the Sick (formerly known as Last Rites) and you see she is wearing no make up and her eyes are swollen… you know. And yet, you are still trying to make sense. How can it be?

And her husband… have I ever in my life watched a man so lost? No. Never. He is roaming this world without a compass. The boat captain he is by profession is now navigating through life, lost in his own sea of grief. He was in denial until the very end. And… I.cannot.blame.him. How does one deal with losing their soul mate; losing the parent of their children? Hospice asked him yesterday what funeral home he wanted to use and he gave them a bewildered look and said, “Oh. Well. I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.” And last night, after Father gave J. her Last Rites, P. told my two friends that were sitting with him, “I’m going to take the boys home now. We’ll come back in the morning.” Stricken with the horror of his denial, they told him he could not leave, that it was time and they needed to stay. And just like that… within the hour… she was gone.

The boys heard for the first time yesterday that their mother was dying. Oh they have had counseling, but it has been, “Your Mother Is Sick” counseling, not “Your Mother Is Dying” counseling. That was to start yesterday. And of course it did… but not the way anyone had planned. And today is her youngest’s 10th birthday.

I have been in a fog most of the day. My body is reacting strangely… one minute my throat is closed off and I cannot breathe, my eyes burning with the sting from the salt of my tears. Other times, I can feel the bile rising in my throat as I want to vomit… as if emptying the contents of my stomach will somehow make this all go away like some horrible virus that has invaded my body. But it won’t. Nothing will. It is done.

I have been able to pull myself through this grief stricken fog off and on today. For a couple hours to smooch on VW’s boys and watch her youngest laugh at me… he seems to finally like the Crazy Lady. We started our Christmas shopping this morning. That is what we mothers do. We look after our children. We know what they want, what they love, what makes them laugh. And as I’m picking up the Ninja Turtle squirt gun that feeds off a big shell filled with water that Son#3 can wear on his back, I can hear him laughing. As I pick up the boxes of Harry Potter legos and put them in our cart, I can see Son#2 pulling out the directions and Son#1 dumping them upon the floor. I can see it. I can hear it. That is what we mothers do.

And now there is no mother for those little boys. There is no other woman other than their mother that knows what exactly makes them laugh and what little thing will bring a smile across their faces. But all they really want, all those two little boys want, at ages 10 and 12, is for their Mom to come back and none of us can provide it. And it is breaking my heart. Of all the funeral’s I’ve been to… the thought of seeing those little boys in the suit coats she borrowed for them so they would look nice at her funeral… it is an agony I cannot convey in words.