All Things Must Pass pt.2

 Week Sixteen: All Things Must Pass pt.2

All things must pass

All things must pass away

All things must pass

None of life’s strings can last

–George Harrison, All Things Must Pass from All Things Must Pass

Like I said, I was not ready for my mother to die.

I probably should have been. She smoked nearly two packs of cigarettes every day for forty-plus years, she suffered renal failure three years earlier, and her heart was not strong. But, the shock of that Saturday morning hit me like a bolt of lightning.

There are details to which one must attend when someone dies. Some are more significant than others. What clothes she would wear at the viewing. What casket we would buy. Whether the identification plate on the concrete vault would be bronze or plastic. Details. Maddening details, but as infuriatingly tedious as was arranging her funeral, it had to be done.

Her first viewing was a Monday afternoon. My wife and I went early for a very simple reason: I couldn’t stand the thought that I would be some sort of spectacle walking into a room of people watching me struggle to keep my composure. As it turned out I entered the room and didn’t struggle at all. Struggling is when someone fights back against whatever demons they are battling. I didn’t try to fight back at all. I completely gave in.

I asked Deb if I could go in alone. She agreed. I turned the corner and entered the room where she lay. You know the horror movies where the protagonist can’t reach the destination because the hallway keeps getting longer? I used to think that wasn’t possible. It happened.

My grief consumed me. It overwhelmed me. It crushed me. Try as I might, I was unable to move forward. I sobbed.

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. There was no denial; she was gone. I guess I should have been angry that she didn’t take better care of herself. That she left me without a chance to say goodbye or that I loved her one more time. That my unfaithful father had ignored her emotional health for so long that for her suicide was accomplished one unfiltered Chesterfield at a time. I should have been infuriated that she denied herself the opportunity to watch her first great grandchild, my first granddaughter grow up. There were plenty of reasons to lash out, I guess, but I don’t think I ever did. There was nothing to bargain in this case, so I conveniently skipped this phase, but I made up for it with depression.

In the weeks after her death she appeared in my nightmares several times. The first time she appeared I tried to hug her. She quickly informed me that was not allowed. At the time it felt traumatic. I remember that I woke up, sat on the side of the bed and wept. In hindsight I realize I was hoping in desperation for the impossible opportunity to be with her again. Other dreams were less traumatic; in one of the dreams we were at the home of a Spanish teacher from the school where I worked. I never did figure out why Shannon got dragged into my sorrow. The last time she appeared to me in a dream was in 2008, nine years after she died, and months after her ex-husband, my father, finally succumbed to cancer. This time there was no fear. There were no tears, no hugs either. I asked her if she went to heaven. She said that she had. She explained it this way:

There are seven levels, like concentric circles.

“In which circle are you?” I asked.

Four

“Can you work your way to the center?”

Yes

“What level is Dad?”

He didn’t make it.

During one of the viewing sessions at the funeral home a bus brought a group of her friends from the retirement village where she lived her final year. I had met many of them previously, and as soon as I saw them enter I braced myself for the heartfelt condolences coming my way. One of her friends patted my arm and said, “You know, your mother got what we all want.” She knew I would ask what that was so she added. “She died quick. Be thankful for that.”

In the year this was written she would have been 97. Knowing that she could not have survived an additional 24 years helps build acceptance, but not nearly enough to erase my sorrow.

https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9RapVptT1k