MOM

I think about my Mom quite often.  Like almost every day.  I know this is quite natural because there is no more unique and special person in one’s life than their mother.  You may not think so when you are growing up and they seem to fail to understand that you really don’t need any help navigating your way to adulthood.  Then, later in life when you are raising your own family, you become acutely aware of how special mothers are. 

While raising your family there is nothing you are doing that your mother didn’t do for you.  Staying up with you at night while suffering from an ear ache, changing diapers, feeding you and getting you dressed.  You weren’t always the big person you are now.  Then the teen years, God help mothers during the teen years. 

I bring this up because my Mom and I were very close.  I was fortunate enough to marry, raise our family and live all of her life within ear shot, for which I will always be grateful.  My Dad was the source of untold number of lessons that have helped me along the way, my Mom provided me priceless core values.  I believe in my heart I was a good son.  But since her leaving us I have lived with the nagging feeling that I should have done more during the last year of her life.

A good friend of mine who was Mom’s doctor called and told me tests had confirmed she had ovarian cancer.  The following months there were countless visits to doctor’s offices, labs, and hospitals.  These were followed with months of chemo and radiation treatment.  Never, never a word of complaint or a “Why me?” 

In her own quiet way Mom was as strong and tough as any human being I have ever known.  She fought as best she could but was losing ground.  It was during the last month of her life that I now realize I should have done more.  Just as in my childhood I was oblivious to all a mother does, the same can be said of this phase of her life.  Not for lack of love or caring, I just was not tuned in like I should have been to someone whose life was ending.  I thought I was but I wasn’t. 

The reasons are too numerous to enumerate here but there was one particular evening that stands out crystal clear to me and speaks volumes about what she was going through.  We had finished  dinner and then chatted about various things.  She was not much for small talk so if she did decide to talk it was a special time.  Shortly after the nurse arrived that would spend the night with her, I tucked her into bed and was getting ready to leave.  She grabbed my hand and said “I wish you could stay.”  I explained that I had to get home to my family and I left.  From that day until now I have not felt good about leaving that night. 

If somehow God would grant me a do-over I would not have left her side from that moment on for the short time she had left.  Lord knows I have a wife who would have said “Do whatever you want to do” had I asked. 

She was a great lady who possessed more kindness in her little finger than most people will ever have in a lifetime.