No Mom For Mother’s Day

Are you like me?  My Mother died last year.  Also, I don’t have children…so the day will come and go like any other.

But luckily, I am not sad.  In six short weeks, my Mother and I covered a lot of territory.  After decades of anger, all of the emotion fell away.  We embraced, expressed love like we never did in the past, and I helped her die.  It was such a beautiful experience.

So I suppose Mother’s Day won’t just pass like any other day, will it?  My memory is very warm  : )

Strange Embrace – by Linda Athis

The most loving embrace
I ever gave,
was over a toilet.

There sat my Mother
unable to speak,
pleading for response
from a body shutting down.

Our eyes met in fear.
We did not share
what we both knew.
Death whispered near.

I’m sorry she said,
as if she caused this,
had cruelly wished a curse
upon me, her caregiver.

In that second my heart split,
ripped raw by a mean and jagged knife.
My stronger, youthful arms reached out,
fiercely wrapped around her bony frame.

And there we paused
in a deep, strange embrace.
Resting, loving, weeping
for all things left unsaid.