It’s been more than two and a half decades since my mother left us, but the wound still burns as fiercely as it did back then.
***
No one steps briskly through the spiked wrought iron gate that leads to heartache. Rather, the Angels of Anguish join forces with the Demons of Despair to press-gang us, one by one, down the narrow dark plank of loss to the restless deck of heartache.
They came for me at two o’clock in the middle of a hot July night in 1998. The muted burble of the bedside phone barely disturbed the tides of my dream as I reached, by habit to answer before it woke up my husband. My cousin’s voice, in neutral tones, said, “Aunty’s had a fall. They’ve taken her to Foothills Hospital. It looks bad.”
Under the blueish light of the pale quarter moon, I hung up the phone as if the call was shameful – a mis-dialing mouth breather – willing it not to be so. After all, I’d just spoken to her a few days before. A bad dream is all. Not real, not real. Not Mom. Mama, Mama! Beloved Nana. Not now. Not fair.
It was hard to catch a breath. The supplicant in my head was begging, please, please, please, please, please. Then the tremors hit. My mind emptied. I snatched my rosary from the bedside table drawer. The rosewood beads slid cool and familiar though my fingers as I whispered, faster and faster, Hail Mary full of grace, Hail Mary full of grace, Hail Mary full of grace, oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, Our Father who art in heaven, Hail Mary full of grace, Hail Mary full of grace. Surely They must hear me! Please, please. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Hail Mary full of grace, Hail Mary full of grace. My lips grew numb under the torrent of words. My jaws ached. No one was listening.
I snatched up the receiver then dropped it when it rang again at three thirty. Dead air; nothing to do but wait, hoping the original call was a mistake. My heart bolted in my chest until the phone rang for the third time, moments later. Despite the roaring buzz in my head, I thought I’d gone deaf. My youngest brother spoke again. He said, “She’s gone. She didn’t suffer. Her friends were there to keep her company.” His voice was soft and measured.
At first, I could not find my voice. “Okay,” I finally said. “All right.” For five minutes the layers of our words piled up with recollection’s sediment then clogged to silence under the sorrow’s weight. “God rest her soul.”
“Amen.”
We listened for a moment to the sounds on the line and to our needled breathing. I said. “We have to call the others and go, right now.”
“Yes,” he said and rang off.
I crushed the receiver to my chest, holding down my raggedy breathing, hoping for her voice to say goodbye from somewhere. She’d been through so much during her seventy-eight years but she never lost hope. No matter what, she believed in God and the power of intention. We all thought she’d be with us for decades more, until we grew old and frail. That she was an incomparable role model, a shining example of endurance and triumph. Huddled on the edge of the mattress, I began to rock back and forth, raging against the undertow of grief. My skull throbbed from the mantra of no! no! no! screamed into my mouth. Then I cried until I couldn’t breathe without shuddering.
I mumbled the rosary, tugging the beads through my numb fingers until the silver crucifix scored dark lines on my palms and my hands were darkly wet.
“My mother is dead. My mother is dead. My mother is dead. God help me, my Mother is dead.”
