She Waited

"It's Terry...it's about mom. You need to come NOW." The worst phone call I ever received, on the worst day of my life...thus far: My brother calling me to tell me that our mother, who had been ill with emphysema for at least 8 years, was dying. My mother, my best friend, the only person in the world who knew all my bad stuff and loved me in spite of it...and she was dying.

I flew out of the office and drove straight to my son's highschool. I ran from my car, my heart pounding with an urgency I have never felt before. I knew I had to get to her.
When they called my son to the office, I told him as gently as I could that my brother had called about grandma, and it was time. We had to get up north as soon as possible.

We drove straight home and threw clothes into bags and began the journey for the 120 mile drive up north to my parents house. A thousand thoughts ran through my head as I drove 90 miles an hour flying past mile markers at what I wished had been the speed of light. I thought about the purple afghan my mother had been making for me for the last 6 months.. She had given it to me before we left their house on Sunday, just two days before. I hadn't wanted to take it; there was a finality to the blanket that I didn't want to deal with. But the afghan was beautiful, and the fact that she finished it as sick as she had been revealed her love for me. She had told me once that she wouldn't go until she knew I would be alright. I always thought that she had meant "until you get your life together", but later I realized that she had meant "until you can handle my death."

My 14 year old son said little on the drive. We talked a little about his grandmother, and how much she loved him. We talked about how he was her first "real" grandson,(the others being from my two step-sisters). We talked about how she would send him and I more money at Christmas and say "don't tell anyone" so the other kids wouldn't be hurt. She knew it wasn't exactly "proper", but she couldn't help herself.

My mother and I hadn't always been friends. There were times when I was growing up when we couldn't back out of the driveway to go shopping without having an argument. There were times after I became a mother that we argued about childraising, about a woman's role, about life in general. The most hurtful arguments were about which one of us had a more miserable life when our children were babies- me raising my son, or her raising me. For some reason, both of us needed to win that one.

As my mother grew sicker, and she needed more help, the more frightened I became. When she had a bad coughing spell and she couldn't breathe, she would call my dad, or my brother or I would call my dad, to rub her back. Rubbing her back calmed her, and eased her breathing. I had rubbed her back on only a couple of occasions, because seeing her in that state stopped my own breathing and made me want to scream. I wanted to scream because my mommy couldn't breathe and she was going to leave me. I was 39 years old.

I did everything else I could to help her. For the last three or four years of her life, I drove to their home almost every other weekend to be with her. Sometimes, even when she was sick, we argued. We were both scared. But for 8 years now I have regretted that I did not rub her back enough, I did not touch her enough except to hug her and tell her I loved her.

About a mile from my parents home, driving down a back road on the last leg of our trip, I heard my mother's voice. She said "Kim, I love you. You will be okay. Please don't light another cigarette after I am gone."

We pulled into the driveway and I ran into the house. I opened the door to her room, and her hospice nurse was there. We had never met. She smiled, bittersweetly, and said, "you must be Kim- You were your mother's heart, you know."  I did know, and she was mine.

I saw her lying in her bed, unconscious, mouth open, breathing very shallow. My son stood in the doorway, very pale. I told him he could say good bye, or go out into the living room...it was okay. I knelt down by my mother and took her hand and spoke to her for a moment. Then I told her, "I love you so much mom. I'm going to be okay. It's okay...you can go now."  Ten seconds later, she took her last breath.

I don't know how long I had been sitting there sobbing when my father came into the room. My father and I had never been as close as we should have been. But I went to him and we held each other, and I told him, still sobbing, "she waited for me....she waited for me..."