Mom

more clouds from the hospital
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

My mother passed away last night at 7 pm.

My brother and I left the hospital at 5, telling Mom we'd be back the next morning. At 6 the nurse called me to say that Mom was failing badly and we needed to get over there. When we got there the nurse said that we could do another operation with another tube, or they could make her comfortable and let her go. No more operations, we said, no more tubes, no more of this hospital shit.

So we stood by our mother, my older brother and me, and held her hands and I talked to her as she went away. I said, You are on a journey. I said, you are on a road and there is grass under your feet and trees along the side and the sun is shining and a guide is ready to meet you at the gate. There are all the good dogs, I said, waiting for you. There's Dad, I said, and my brother said, there's everyone. You are loved, I said, I love you, we love you, you have been the best mother in the whole world and everything I ever learned I learned from you. And my mother left. Her face changed and her soul went away and the numbers on the monitor fell to 0 and the lines became flat.

And now I don't know anything. I don't know what I will ever do again.