The Shell that Could Be Me

I unpinned the Christmas letter from mom’s bulletin board, then sat down next to her on the bed.  I pointed out the pictures of her forever-best-friend and watched as she took the letter into her aged, thin, arthriticly twisted hand, scowled, then finally commented that it ‘just doesn’t look like Lorraine.’

I read aloud the words printed in the letter .  Mom asked me to slow down, then stop, as she tried to figure out who these people were, how they played into her prior ninety-five years of life.

Inside the accompanying Christmas card was a note:  “Dear Gert, I know that if mom could have one last wish, she would wish to be with you once again, to laugh and share just a few of the many wonderful memories.”  My throat ached and I blinked back tears.  I set the card down without reading the words aloud to mom.  It would only confuse her, and I could not trust my voice to remain steady.

How could you forget your best friend?  The one that had shared your youth, your secrets, your children, your life, and so many, many laughs.

It got me to thinking of my own mortality and the realization that someday the shell of a woman on the bed might be me. 

Of course I hope it never happens.  I hope that many years from now, I can slip quietly from this world into the next.  But life doesn’t always play fair.

I came to realize that I wished the same for me as what I wished upon reading the Christmas card for my own mother.  I wish that when the day comes that familiar faces begin to look like strangers, my best friend is in the room with me.  We have shared our youth, our secrets, our children, our lives, and many, many laughs.  It only seems right that we would once again be roommates, sharing silence or perhaps a few words, but certainly memories, even if only internal.  Flashes of comprehension.  A smile, and a hand held when needed.  The same hand that had intertwined mine many times before.

If I could give my mother one thing, this sweetness is what I would give her.  Realistically I know it will never happen.  Still……

It is the end we should all be lucky and honored enough to have.  Our best friend, holding our hand right up to the gate.

Different Ends of the Same Road

With a shout and wave, my son bound out the door to go see his girlfriend.  He fired up his car, backed it carefully from the garage stall, and drove off into the winter darkness with no cares in the world and lightness in his heart.

It is the simplest of actions, and yet the normalcy of it all brings a sad, wistful smile to my face, and a lump in my throat.

Fifteen hundred miles away, parents’ hearts are broken, filleted wide open with wounds that will never heal.  The Christmas lights, unhung, blackened, will never burn brightly again for them.  Instead, they are burying their beautiful, sweet, angelic children in a frozen, hardened ground.

Where is the Christmas in that?

A madman has stolen away the joy and innocence.  Because of him, because of his sickened mind, those parents will never see their son or daughter have a first love, a first car, or even challenges of teen years.  No dances, no walk down the aisle, nor grandchildren who will steal their hearts. 

About the madness, people ask ‘what are we to do?”

 

There are no quick answers.  Nothing that can make a difference to those babes already gone.  We can only dry the tears of those left behind and say meaningless phrases like “God must have needed more angels.” 

All words fall flat.

Fifteen hundred miles away I can only try to understand the grief.  It is incomprehensible.  If I think too hard about it, I could become hardened to the world.  Never trust.  Carry the burden with a grimaced face.  Close my own world to what is safe.  Then I ask myself to define safe---if not a kindergarten room in a school, then where?

My eyes watered as my son left the driveway.  The lights from our Christmas tree shone in reflection in a window.

We must never, ever forget.  We need to hug each other a little tighter and flourish the “I love you’s” more frequently.  In the end, it is all that matters.  On either end of the road.