No words are necessary

The days are long - and someday I know - they will seem short.

When we knew that daddy was dying we talked.  The morning he died he said to our mother - 

Is there anything we need to talk about???

This is different.  My mother's aging process has caused great times of confusion.  Her hearing has been compromised for many years.  I've been talking with her via a whiteboard for a long time.

There's no way to white-wash it.  This is a difficult experience.  

I'm the pollyanna of our family - I always think it's going to work out for the best.  At least those are the words that I can get out of my mouth.  This in no means eradicates the fact that when it comes to losing one's mother - even the one that I had sort of lost a long time ago - at least I feel like I lost her as a friend - I digress...

One might ask - how am I coping???

One thing I do is every now and then I take a brief walk - where I enjoy ---

I know this blog does not include sound effects.  'sorry about that - the sound of the water helps me.

So do some of my memories - 

It was the summer of 1977.  I had read a few books by Joyce Landorf and recently purchased Mourning Song.  My mother and I both read it while I was recuperating from a caesarian section delivery of my youngest child, Tray.

Just six weeks later her aunt, Lila Mercer Newton, passed away and she told me how reading that book had prepared her for that homegoing.  My mother's mother, Pauline Mercer Nesmith died at age 69 six years prior.

As I began to realize that mother was on her way to Heaven - a year or more ago - my first copy long gone - I ordered another.  By the time this one was published, Landorf had remarried and experienced breast cancer herself.  She had written Mourning Song after she had experienced loss - a baby, a beloved grandfather, and her mother.  The re-print of her book includes letters and discussions she had with others who had suffered great loss as well as her reactions to the truth that she had the same diagnosis. I've since learned that Joyce Landorf Heatherly went to be with the Lord in 2021.

As my mother nears the end of her time on this earth and goes to be with the Savior she has loved and served since she was 15 years old I've been wondering. .  .

What is she thinking about?  I wish she could communicate but try as she might she just can't.

I'm fortunate - I have the words she's put on paper.  I also have memories of the words she's said to me.

I am almost 75 years old.  My mother lost her mother when she was not yet 50.

In her book, Landorf Heatherley lovingly remembers what her mother wanted her to learn as she suffered and then died.  This statement has remained with me -  

"I have spent your life endeavoring to teach you how to live.  Now I am going to show you how to die".

I look back on the things my mother endeavored to teach me.  She tried sewing and made an effort at cooking.  She even tried gardening.  I do know how to cook. 

She did not teach me how to die and more than that to "let her die".

She did teach me (and my siblings)

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart; In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your path" (Proverbs 3:5).

And so I'm choosing to believe - that's what she's thinking about.

No words are necessary.