This story received an Honorable Mention for Memoirs/Personal Essays – Writer’s Digest Contest
And was Published in “Heart of a Mother,” Edited by Sheryl Roush
My Mom lived in her pink, velour robe that summer. Her bones protruded through the fabric and the bottom hem dangled threadbare. She had no reason to dress.
Leaned against a pile of pillows, Mom opened her mouth to speak but only drool leaked out. Her scrunched face cried of an anguish I could not comprehend. I reached over to clasp her trembling hands. She tried to hold mine, then she let go. She gazed into my eyes with a long, somber look. Then her brown eyes grew wider. I imagined her saying, “The cancer may be what you see out here but I’m still in here, Suzan.”
I took Mom outside each morning so she could feel the ground under her and the sunshine on her. She’d been the kind of person who could walk 20 miles without pausing. Now we spent much of the afternoon getting down the block. Each time she reached the end of the street, she flashed me a slight freckled dimple.
On Mom’s fifty-first birthday my brother, John, and I surprised her with a beach get-away. We arranged for a nurse to be with us the entire time. With her pink robe dangling around her tender frame and both arms around our necks, we guided her onto a beach chair. For hours she moved her toes slightly back and forth smoothing out the toasty sand. She stared toward the rolling waves along the Gulf Shore with her mouth ajar and hands in prayer atop her velour fabric.
Mom grew up on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. She’d told us that throughout her youth the beach soothed away every hurt. We hoped this visit would bring a respite from her pain. As she slumped into the cushiony beach chair, her robe swayed slightly in the breeze. She clutched it tighter around her skeletal frame. I noticed tears gliding down her cheeks.
At night connected to morphine, her only other comfort seemed to be in the velour fabric of her pink robe. Mom lay still yet stirred whenever she heard our voices. She’d strain to open her eyes. She’d lean closer in to listen. Mom had a perpetual look of, “I don’t want to go.”
Toward the end of summer we gathered her closest friends, family and clergy around her, read Bible verses and prayed over her. Her delicate frame within the pink robe showed a slight, erratic heartbeat. “Mom it is okay to let go,” said John holding her right hand. “Please go with God,” said her daughter, Adele, brushing her hands along Mom’s temples. “Be at peace. I love you, Mom,” I whispered with my hand pressed upon her heart. I then felt her stillness and watched her intently as tears streamed down. I didn’t want to miss a moment of our final memory.
Mom’s eyes looked as if she’d seen the dead and I imagined that she may have. I envisioned her Father with his generous grin beckoning her forth with sweeping hand gestures. A sigh labored from her quivering mouth. Her eyes rolled back and her body became limp.
My body heaved as I gasped for air. In my head I knew she’d left her pain. In my heart I knew that in spite of everything, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. Who ever is? Two men from the morgue arrived with the gurney. They placed Mom on it with slow precision – in her pink, velour robe. We gathered around to embrace her one last time. Yet who was this 80 pound brittle woman? Her cancer left us with nothing to hug.
I clung to Mom and her pink robe. I heard someone mutter, “Come on honey, let go.” I couldn’t.
I finally pushed myself up with the rail and then followed the men as they wheeled her out of the house. Walking along side them, I bawled over her slight frame down the driveway. Before they placed her into the Hearst, I reached down to feel the softness once again of the velour robe. I rubbed my hand along the length of it. I then hugged Mom’s placid body one last time as my own body collapsed around hers in uncontrollable heaves.
I felt my body being lifted, as if by a crane, off of my Mother and her robe. “Okay young lady. We must go now,” one said. The men loaded her into the back of the Hearst. I watched them drive away en route to the crematory. I sank down on the hard cement driveway and curled to my side. My best friend is gone—forever, I realized. What had been unsaid? I contemplated. With this I rolled over and sprawled against the lawn.
I reached over and grabbed some clumps of grass from the lawn. Then I pounded my fists over and over into the spongy turf. I wondered if I’d ever get through the numbing pain. Will I ever get over losing my Mom? I pondered.
I leaned into the grass and rubbed my hands along the blades. My throat felt parched. I began to choke as I grappled for air. I sat up and wiped my wet face with the front of my shirt. The blades of grass were not as soft as Mom’s pink robe. I longed to feel it once again.
Suzan Tusson, CPCC Copyright 2003-2011 All Rights Reserved