I haven't posted in a while.
September 12th to be exact.
Mom mother passed on September 20th.
It was a shock, even though the day before; the last time that I saw, her she looked like she was dying.
Nobody else at the hospital told us that. She was to be moved to a rehab facility that very day, they were just waiting for the dr. to sign off.
I remember thinking, 'seriously- rehab? she can't even eat by herself and is not communicating clearly"
Still, I thought that they knew best.
I came home that day, very shaken up. When I was in with her, I had looked out her window in the hospital room, overlooking beautiful downtown Camden, and began to cry silent tears, not wanting her to know how upset I was at her sudden decline.
I heard a voice in my head, saying " let her go" and then the word "peacefully" over and over again. I didn't want to believe it, but the feeling and the words were all encompassing and very loving.
That's how I knew she was dying.
My brother and sisters and I were planning to spend the entire day with her at the hospital the next day.
That morning, when the phone rang at 7:25am, I knew.
My brother told me that the hospital had just called. My mother passed that morning at 7:13am, a nurse holding her hand. The nurse told my brother "she gently slipped away." Then she added, "She went very peacefully."
My soul is quite bruised right now. The past few weeks have seemed a blur.
I wrote the eulogy for my mother's Catholic service. I was terrified that I wouldn't be able to muster the courage - that I would cry without saying what I intended to say.
But I managed it. I must be stronger than I thought.
I find myself wandering around the house, picking things up, and then putting them down; not really sure what I was supposed to be doing in the first place.
I feel orphaned, abandoned, and at the same time aware that I'm now truly a grown up.
And I guess that means that I have to grow up.
It just hurts, is all.
