Flashbacks toTheir Mother's Last Days

Life has a funny way of distracting us from our preoccupations. It had been nothing out of the ordinary that day that changed Mary’s train of thought from focusing on the purchase of her first vehicleback in 1988. It was something quite common actually. That day had been a long day filled with driving Robin back and forth to work, going to a prayer meeting in the morning, and seeing clients in the afternoon. Mary finally felt the weight of her weariness as she sat down that evening to watch a popular series on TV. Engrossed in the storyline a flashback to Mary’s own past came by way of one dying man asking another man to pray the “Hail Mary” with him. Tears came to Mary’s eyes as she recalled her own mothers last waking moments before she went into that unconsciousness state that preceded death.
It was a beautiful experience which Mary had written about in a poem after her mom’s demise. Mary’s mother had fallen and broken her hip December first, 2000. After a surgery and the short lived hopeful beginnings of recovery her mother had taken a turn for the worst. It was December 30th, early in the morning, with her family surrounding her that Mary Helen asked her children to pray with her. Mary stood between her siblings holding hands, praying, and crying as her mother went into a litany of the rosary with her family. Suddenly their mother was no longer present with them, had stopped praying, and in a few short hours would be gone from them forever. She was departed but had not been forgotten for here resided Mary reliving those precious last hours. She recalled sitting there waiting, feeling honoured when her mother’s last breaths came, and Mary caught a glimpse of eternity in her mother’s face.
It had been amazing to watch and see all the pain and wrinkles disappear from her skin. At 86, her mother’s face had been very wrinkled but in death it had shone like the complexion of an 18 year old and her hair which had not been washed for a few days now took on a lustre and glow that highlighted her countenance like a halo. Mary had felt like she had, just for a moment, stepped into eternity with her mother. It was the most awesome experience interrupted only by the presence of her sister, Martha, who had come back into the room after a brief reprieve. Martha had stared down at her sister and her mother watching the scene of silence. Mary had only looked up and heard her sister say,” She’s dead.”
Within minutes doctors and nurses came to fill the room and announce what the two sisters already knew. Then Mary’s brother, Joe, and his wife Bernadette who had carried the burden of staying with Mary at the hospital the last month came forth and joined in the tears that had begun to flow.
The whole drama became eerily nightmarish when the nurses came to clean the body of their mother. But the howls which were aroused from deep within Mary came at the sight of the tag they put on her mother’s toe. It was an uncontrollable grief which started and seemed to have no end.
Bernadette had gone to see if she could get some medicine to help and a nurse returned with a wheelchair to take Mary away. She felt betrayed and looked angrily at her sister-in-law who apologized profusely realizing the error the nurse had made. After what seemed hours Mary had quieted down. It was dark outside now, and Mary and her family sat in an empty room. Her mother’s body was no longer there. She was gone. Yet the memories of those days were neatly bundled within her heart and in the poem that came forth inspired by the witness of God’s love in her mother’s last days.