When Mama Passed Over
My Mom died October 17, 1989, at the same moment as a big earthquake in California. She fell asleep on Friday the 13th, under a full moon and dreamed four days and then let go. She visited me and my girls that Friday 13th as we went for an evening walk. I recalled that she'd come to my school in a blizzard when I was ten to bring me a coat, as the weather had turned cold suddenly that noon and I had not worn one in the morning. I said to my kids what a good mom their Grandma always was. I'm pretty sure she smiled at that. I thought I would call her when we got home, ask her again about how to make one pound of butter into two. She’d laugh when I asked her to tell me, and she’d say, “Don’t you know that?” And I’d say, “No, my Mom never taught me.” Then she’d tell me how she did it and I’d forget again. (I still don’t know).
The moon rose, large and strange, a bit ominous. We started out spooked but walked it off. When we got back to the trailer, the phone was ringing and my brother said he couldn't get Mom to wake up. She'd gone to sleep reading Homecoming, by Cynthia Voight. I had read the book to Mom and my girls once before, back when she stayed with us. This time, she checked it out herself (from the same library), and was nearly to the end again, very nearly getting Dicey, Maybeth, James, and Sammy settled in home.
Mom wasn't afraid of dying -- as I'm not -- but she was afraid of old age (which I'm not), and hated winter (which I sorta don't). So, she checked out just before the first snowfall while she was still relatively young (seventy-six), and after she'd moved into a house of her own, with my brother and his wife.
She went to sleep on Friday the 13th under a strange full moon while reading Homecoming and took her last breath at the exact time of the 6.9 earthquake in San Francisco, and left us to face winter’s first snow the day of her funeral. Way to go, Mama.
No comments:
Post a Comment