6384 -- For Mom
By Bill, posted on 06/03/2005
It's been a rainy week at Victory Farm. Five straight days of scattered showers. Not the kind of rain where you look outside, shake your head in wonder, then put your feet up and watch an old movie. Just an overall dreariness that chills you and leaves you feeling empty inside.
The chickens don't much mind this kind of weather. Enough rain to bring up worms and grubs but not enough to keep themselves under cover. There are a couple of spots in the pasture that they gather around like a lunch counter and happily peck away. I always look at it to see what they find so exciting but I can't see anything there except mud.
A good handful of years ago I used to work in New York City. Occasionally I would pack a lunch, jump on a subway and ride it to central park. I found a quiet hill that overlooks a lake and I would sit there as long as I could. I discovered if I took lunch early and got back when everyone else was out to their lunch I could get nearly two hours without anyone catching on.
Sitting on that hill, on a day after a good heavy rain, I noticed sparrows pulling worms out of the ground by the bushel. I looked down expecting to see a worm and saw nothing but grass and dirt. I looked back up too see the buffet still going strong. Obviously I had picked the only bit of ground not replete with worms so proceeded, on my hands and knees, to crawl around this hill looking for worms. I never found one. Looked up -- yep, still a veritable cornucopia for hungry sparrows.
I got to thinking and wondered how many other things there are that are right in front of me but I can't see. I like to look for things, always have. I like to notice things that other people walk by. I thought I did a good job but those sparrows showed me there was always more to see, more to notice.
My Mom was always good at that. She would always say "Look at that sunset" or "Look at the colors of that tree." When I got into my teens I found it annoying, "Yeah, it's a tree whatever." Not because it wasn't spectacular but because that's what teens do. But when I was done rolling my eyes I still looked. Still enjoyed the moment that she was creating by us stopping simply to notice something.
Mom died today on this dreary rainy spring day. Today the rain has been coming down relentlessly. Enough to make you shake your head and put on an old movie, and I did. Astaire and Rogers. It's hard to be so deeply unhappy when Fred and Ginger are capering across the dance floor, seemingly floating, full of such exuberant joy.
Only nine weeks ago Mom was playing with my son, her grandson, seemingly healthy. It's been nine weeks that seem like a year. ER visits, surgeries, ICU spells, three different hospitals... Rallies followed by another decline, each decline leaving her worse than before. Then, finally, hospice.
Cancer, like so many other things, can go unnoticed, unseen, unless you really go looking for it. Nobody was looking.
When I was a toddler, during a game of "I love you this much", I ended the game by saying to my Mom "I love you sixty three eighty four." That became a codeword for us for many years to come, one which she never forgot.
I knew I had to tell her "6384" one last time before she went. But I also knew that it would be the final goodbye. The full admission that she was going and was never coming back. The full realization that I would never again make her day by picking up the phone and telling her what amazing thing her grandson did that day.
Two days ago was the time I could wait no longer. The time when I also had to tell her it was okay to go, to move on. "I love you 6384" I said. "We will all be fine. It's okay to go now. And I'll miss you 6384."
It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. It was also one of the most necessary. It took 5 tries to start, and another 10 to finish all the words. After the first time it became easier. I waited for her eyes to appear focused and repeated it twice more.
That was all I needed to say. The remainder of that day and the next I sat by her bed telling her stories which she seemd to enjoy very much. That is already a warm and fond memory that I will cherish--maybe because those moments were such a contrast to the previous weeks or maybe they are just the final chapter, the final words to one if the finest stories of my life.
Since the day my son was born I've always shown him things. We regularly watch the sunset from "sunset hill" (okay, it's the septic mound but it's highest point on the property). We stop and look at the colors of a particular tree in autumn. We look, together, for whatever those damn chickens are eating in that damn mud.
He recently said "Daddy, show me more. Learn me everything."
Thanks Mom. I love you... 6384.
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