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By redplasticroses Date: 2005 Mar 09 Comment on this Work [[2005.03.09.07.51.27300]] |
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There are universal lessons about love and marriage that are passed down through the ages, woman to woman..... and while we are in love, we don't see or hear them....despite the warnings - until our life suddenly mirrors theirs, only then do we remember. Sentimental Journey His Mother, now a shadow of what she was... Her body ravaged by cancer I handed her a couple teaspoons of "Angel's Brew", Liquid morphine, that sparkled in the filtered sunlight of A spring afternoon Her frail hand grasping in mid-air knowing mine would find her's Her pale blue eyes lacking the spark of life that they once held looked past mine I studied her my mind full of questions that hers could no longer answer. The eleventh hour was upon us like heavy fog on a spring morning. Until a few weeks ago I never knew her on anything more than a superficial level... Nor had I cared to...... what kind of person must I be? Suddenly I felt ashamed. I studied her face.... those pale blue eyes Hollow looking past me..... windows to the soul. Suddenly it occurred to me how very lonely this soul must have been all these years Divorced for years growing old alone and now, in her last days, clinging to life -almost alone Her life had been filled with bitterness and little joy. I kept my distance...we all did. Not one of us had ever taken the time to look.... I mean REALLY look into those blue eyes or beyond Weeks before, bed-ridden and wanting help to organize her few worldly treasures.... I got a glimpse.... a rare glimpse into those eyes... now glazed with pain and impending death my mind drifted recalling that day Her gentle moan of pain jolted me back to reality.... I stood silently looking at her... all facets of her.... My mind wandered back to that day and as I watched those tired pale blue eyes I wondered if knowing her hours were numbered she too was on a sentimental journey..... Was she recalling the sterling silver dinnerware that she collected, One piece at a time with each paycheck never to use because her husband thought it a foolish luxury? Was she seeing the dozens of beautifully embroidered pillowcases that she and her mother made for her hope chest, that never left it "too girly" her husband would say "Trash" Or the delicate organza pillow she painstaking stitched for her marital bed with their names and wedding date... only to remain in the box she had originally put it in for safe keeping 45 years ago... that he forbid her to use? Perhaps she was recalling how she Would feed six children With little money because her husband Spent most of his wages on booze While the children did without And she had even less. I wondered if she recalled Never knowing what it was like To own a home or Never having an indoor bathroom Until she was divorced And five of her children were already grown Or...was she thinking about seeing Colin, the child she lost to brain cancer at the age of three, when her husband told her he didn't believe in doctors ... or miracles, much less God. He took her and their toddler son To the university hospital and left him there to die Insisting she return home to tend to the other children Who needed her Telling her, as he pulled him from her arms That she would see him again When they buried him I was instantly angry!! How dare him crush the spirit of what once was obviously a gentle soul looking for someone to love her and share her life....... Only to replace it with a lonely, bitter, hate-filled woman who had only one friend. My heart ached.... soon we would bury seventy-two years of unrequited love.... a heart that never found what it desired - to be loved, her soul still very much in need. As I looked in the mirror my pale green eyes stared back at me, too familiar with this journey.... and how the story ends..... Instantly, I was frozen in time. Years were passing rapidly her son's harsh words like his father's before him a slow dripping faucet landing on my heart.... eroding part of me that is forever gone. Slowly, I would come to realize that my journey must take a different path.... I chose happiness... not years of merely existing, that wasn't part of my plan. My soul yearns for a kindred spirit to join me.... with God's blessing before my eleventh hour. Her loud moans of pain Jolt me back to reality My hand dries my tears I return to the task at hand.... Lovingly caring for her as she approaches the end of this world and passes into the next. My glimpse into her soul made me aware that she has spent years dying painfully day by day minute by minute inch by inch I gently guide her fraile and unsteady hand And the spoonful of "angel's brew" To her parched mouth THIS is the easy part.... the morphine eases her pain, something life could never do She closes her hollow blue eyes for the last time and begins her new journey I whisper a prayer that she finds love and a gentler path On the other side. |