My mom is dying.
In the last nine months she’s spent maybe a week total at home. The rest of the time has been spent moving from the hospital to a rehab center to a managed care facility and back to the hospital. My older sister, who has a nursing background, has spent almost all of that time with her, to the detriment of her job, her family, and her health. She’s taken over my mom’s finances, stayed on top of the countless medical bills, and micromanaged 7 different specialists. Needless to say, this has been a rough year.
I won’t go into the specifics of my mom’s situation; it would take too long to explain everything anyway. But her condition has gradually worsened over time, and it’s not going to get any better. This past weekend, I sat down with my sister to discuss and begin planning her funeral. This isn’t something that I ever expected to be doing at this point in my life. Both of her parents lived well past 80. The possibility of burying my mom at 67 is unimaginable. And yet, here we are.
Whatever happens and whenever it happens, I’ve already agreed to speak at her memorial service. I don’t know what I’ll say, but it’ll probably be a funny story from my childhood and about how much she loved us. And that’s true. While she didn’t always voice her love for us, I never questioned it. I can never thank her enough for all she’s done for us or repay all she’s given us. Because of her, I have a college education. Because of her, we managed to keep making our house payments and put food on the table at times that we otherwise couldn’t. Because of her, I have a chance to be the husband and father my family deserves. And yet, despite those truths, when I look back over my life, I can’t help but to be angry.
My parents divorced when I was six. With my mom working and my sister who knows where, I spent much of my childhood alone. I’d walk myself to and from school, stay home by myself after school, stay alone at night on many occasions while my mom went out on dates. When I entered the 7th grade, we moved to DFW, leaving my sister in Lubbock to live with my grandparents while she finished high school. At the absolute worst times in my life, my mom was too busy working to be there for me. And my dad wasn’t there, my sister wasn’t there. Over the years, I was dragged to smoke-filled bingo parlors, honky-tonks, and even to the Lubbock feed lots. (My mom once dated a guy that lived and worked there. I’ll never forget the sights and smells of that place, but on the plus side I got to learn how to count cattle and deliver a calf. And his trailer was well stocked with Playboys.) I was also dragged to another smokey trailer in Crosbyton, Texas, where my first stepdad lived with his parents and briefly to Garland when my mom took a job in Dallas. In junior high, some unemployed loser alcoholic moved in with us. He treated my mom like shit and abused me before she finally got the nerve to kick him out. When my second stepdad came along — a genuinely good guy even though he was a borderline chain smoker — we moved in with him far away from my high school. Luckily I didn’t have to transfer schools, but those years were miserable for me. I didn’t want to live in that house. I didn’t want to live in a frickin’ ash tray anymore. I just wanted out.
I have every right to be mad at both of my parents. No kid should ever have to go through the hell I went through. No kid should ever be left alone that young and for so long, left to fend for himself. I should’ve ended up a drug addict or an alcoholic or in jail. I shouldn’t have made it out alive and relatively unscathed. But I did, somehow, by the grace of God.
So as I sit here thinking about what I would say about my mom, part of me is still hurt and angry. Part me wants to get up there and tell everyone just what kind of mother she really was. But I can’t and I won’t. Because despite her mistakes and her often terrible judgment, she honestly tried. She wasn’t a perfect mom by any stretch of the imagination, but she never stopped trying and she never, ever stopped loving me. And I never stopped loving her.
Ecclesiastes reminds us that there’s a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear and a time to mend. The time for tearing is over. It’s time to mend, to love, to forgive, and ultimately to say goodbye. To remember the laughter and joy of my childhood and celebrate a mom — my mom — that made me the man I am today.
I love you, Mom. I’m gonna miss you forever.
Previously:
Mistaking rocks for fossils
Memento Vivere
Remembering my grandfather