Soon...
She was carried down the stairs carefully wrapped in a crisp white sheet by a stranger. Though my husband Raj and I watched the process in all its infinite un-realness - it felt as if I was somehow experiencing a medical procedure- certainly this was not a spiritual experience - which is why I know her soul left her body.
The 'stranger' from the mortuary carried her body as if she were his bride and he was simply carrying her over the thresh hold - when he got to the bottom of mom's beautiful stair case, he placed her body on the gurney, face up, and covered her face for the last time. The hospice nurse, who was on the phone with us all night, appeared at the front door as this was happening. She lifted the sheet where my mother's hand was resting and gently stroked it...we exchanged pleasantries and she waited inside our home as Raj and I followed him pushing mom's body out the walk way and into the back of a mini van - (I think her ride was next to yet another fleeing soul's body).
We watched together - mimicking my mom's actions countless times she waved and watched as me and my small family left her house from many a wonderful visit. This time it was we who were on the drive way, it was we who were standing, full of emptiness, not waving, but rather holding each other as I sobbed in pain that this was the last time my mom would leave this home. She was dead.
It has now been one month since that day and the new found treasures of grief consume and bless me simultaneously with the pain of loving and loosing all at once. Grief is not like an onion - but more like an ocean, vast and alive, and fierce. I am on the shore of my grief. Soon I will be way out to sea, and I will not be able to recall the grit of the sand being crammed down my throat as each wave tumbles and devours me with its primal force and nearly drowns my very being.
Soon.
The 'stranger' from the mortuary carried her body as if she were his bride and he was simply carrying her over the thresh hold - when he got to the bottom of mom's beautiful stair case, he placed her body on the gurney, face up, and covered her face for the last time. The hospice nurse, who was on the phone with us all night, appeared at the front door as this was happening. She lifted the sheet where my mother's hand was resting and gently stroked it...we exchanged pleasantries and she waited inside our home as Raj and I followed him pushing mom's body out the walk way and into the back of a mini van - (I think her ride was next to yet another fleeing soul's body).
We watched together - mimicking my mom's actions countless times she waved and watched as me and my small family left her house from many a wonderful visit. This time it was we who were on the drive way, it was we who were standing, full of emptiness, not waving, but rather holding each other as I sobbed in pain that this was the last time my mom would leave this home. She was dead.
It has now been one month since that day and the new found treasures of grief consume and bless me simultaneously with the pain of loving and loosing all at once. Grief is not like an onion - but more like an ocean, vast and alive, and fierce. I am on the shore of my grief. Soon I will be way out to sea, and I will not be able to recall the grit of the sand being crammed down my throat as each wave tumbles and devours me with its primal force and nearly drowns my very being.
Soon.
Replies