Thawing Out

We made it home after a 10 day trip to visit families and the mostly sad experiences that made up the Utah trip. We did really enjoy attending Jillian's (my niece) baptism, spending time at Kip and Heather's, and sledding with Gregg and family. Nicky was fearless fiend on the sled.

I won't soon forget the memories made in the rest home or the quiet nights in Mom's old room. The worst thing about losing a loved one is the silence it creates both on the inside and outside. I was getting ready for bed one night in Mom's old bathroom and was overwhelmed with tears of missing. We had just gotten back from a rest home visit where Mom had lost her pants while exchanging clothes with her friend Lori (Mom's friend with dementia). Mom was walking down the hallway wearing nothing on the bottom but a blanket. She was quickly detained and dressed by staff member. However, after witnessing this crazy behavior and realizing that the rest of my mother's life will be spent wandering a 45 foot locked hallway in the midst of people 20 years her senior, I was in a bad way.

I got down on my knees and prepared to ask for comfort. Instead, the words I began to utter were those of gratitude. I remembered and said thanks for all the good things. For example, I liked the way Mom's down feather pillow smelled like musky springtime and how her cheeks were as soft as her pillow when I gave her a kiss. I loved the way she smiled and laughed and they way she picked up objects with her big long toes. I was grateful for the time when I was in 9th grade when Mom and I read East of Eden by John Steinbeck together. We weren't getting a long too well and that simple experience seemed to bridge the gap. Sometimes we'd read together and sometimes alone but we always talked about what we'd read. She told me not to read one part because it was too sexy so I stole away to my room and read it anyway. I also expressed gratitude for Mom's example of faith in prayer. Her prayers in my behalf were so sincere and heartfelt that I can't help but believe they had the power to pull down the very angels in heaven to watch over me.

After the prayer, I laid down in bed, her old bed, and watched as the moonlight streamed through the small rectangular window over the french doors. The soft blue light touched on Mom's yellow lamp making the little glass prisms dance with sparkles. The raw and silent emptiness in me was comforted a little both by the gratitude prayer and the personal light show.

It was also comforting just to be home. It was below 20 degrees our last few days in Utah. San Diego, with her sunshine and balmy breeze blowing against my cheeks, embraced me and my aching heart in her warmth and palm tree framed greenness like a welcoming old friend with familiar arms. And my feet no longer feel like five-toed ice blocks. Life can go on.