an·ni·ver·sa·ry

/ˌænəˈvɜrsəri/ Show Spelled 

noun,

1. the yearly recurrence of the date of a past event.

2. the celebration or commemoration of such a date.

 

 

 

 

The anniversary of a death, any death, but in my case the death of my mom, does not get much easier as the years go by.  I remember the last Thanksgiving, the last Christmas, the weeks at my parents home in what almost seemed like a movie set, all the hospital gear in the bedroom, with my mom's pretty knick knacks and window treatments looking on.  I think back on those weeks in the nursing home and then the hospital, the building she didn't leave once she returned there unexpectedly after the holidays.  The building that saw me break down into sobs before even making it to the elevator 6 months later when going to visit a friend.

 

I remember the day before mom died.  I sat in that hospital room, mending her favorite dark blue sweater.  I knew she would not need that sweater again but I had promised her I'd fix the little hole in it and I was damn sure not going to go back on my word.  I was doing one of the last things I could do for my mom in quietly stitching back and forth with blue thread to repair the sweater I had bought her prior to Thanksgiving.  She was always cold at Peabody Manor.  She loved that sweater. 

 

The evening before my mom died I was in the room alone when her doctor came in and told me her death would come within 24 hours.  As I type this line I feel that bottomless hole again in my stomach, realizing that my hope that a miracle would occur and my mom would somehow leave those walls to live life again was not going to happen.  A minister came in as well.  We talked and he recommended a book "Turn My Mourning Into Dancing" by Henri Nouwen.  He said it helped him and I wrote down the title, eventually buying the book along with one that maybe gave me more comfort than any other book could, "In Memoriam" also by Nouwen.  I relived those last days of my mom's life as I read of Nouwen's last days with his own mother in a heartbreakingly similar scenario.

 

The night before my mom died my brother came and stayed.  We sat and talked.  We sat and absorbed the silence behind the beeping of machines and my mom's forced breaths.  We dozed but didn't really sleep as between us was the promise that we would be there at the end. We knew though my mom couldn't speak, she could hear us, having squeezed our hand that afternoon as the family gathered, last rights were given, and we each said our goodbye.  We kept the small cd player next to her hospital bed going.  We played her favorite Gaither cd's and the Randy Travis & Charlie Pride hymms that she loved and that would still be playing when she did finally leave us.  The rose hanging on the door let passersby know that the patient in that room was going to pass.  Every time I went out for air, a look out of another window, a cup of hospital coffee, I saw that rose and I would walk back in with more sadness than I had gone out.

 

The morning that my mom died I was more weary and sad than I can ever remember being.  As I looked at my brother and finished the sentence "I don't know how much longer I can do this" my brother said "Tina, I think she's gone."  I turned my head and yes.  The air held the sound of the incessant medical machine beeping but my mom was peacefully silent and no longer floating in any pain or discomfort.

 

The day after my mom died I met one of my sisters for a coffee at Barnes & Noble and we sat and talked and cried a little and I found the copy of "In Memoriam" which I treasure for the gift it gave me, that I was not the only one who saw a parents death through till the end while wishing I could do anything but that. 

 

Four days after my mom died was the funeral.  An event so surreal that even now I can't believe that it was happening.  My mind wove in and out of the past week's events while sitting in that front row, holding a rose, missing my mom so completely.  She was not coming back and I was now a daughter without a mother and always would be from that day on.

 

A week after my mom died Clay and I were heading north for my birthday.  A cabin in upper Michigan, one of my favorite spots on earth.  I didn't feel like celebrating and I don't think I did actually.  It was more of a somber and shell-shocked birthday than any I can remember to be honest.  I have tried in the years since to remember one anniversary, celebrating the life and memories of my mom one week, and honoring the day she gave birth to me in the next.  I've never been one to celebrate my birthday but I am finding the older I get that I should.  I am here.  I am blessed in many ways.  There are many reasons to celebrate.

 

Four years after the death of my mom I still have moments when I want to pick up the phone and call her and I do think I always will have that urge.  I have my mom's love of jewelry, antiques, handbags & artwork...and many times after finding something wonderful at a thrift shop I wish so badly that I could show it to her but I think she knows what I've acquired since she left this earth.  Knowing how many boxes of things she collected and stacked in the basement I think she knows full well how much stuff I have.  It's in the genes.

 

There are moments when I speak that the voice I hear is mine...but too...it's my mom's.  It's startling when it happens but that, along with looking in the mirror now and sometimes seeing her face looking back at me are comforts.  Proof that I am my mother's daughter and she will not be forgotten.

 

Tomorrow, on the 4th anniversary of my mom's death I will bundle up for a winter snowstorm that they say is coming.  I will get in my car and drive to my bookstore and spend the day with a special white kitty who I have because of my mom's passing.  To deal with the grief I became a volunteer at a Neenah rescue and after 2 years adopted a kitty who has become more important to me than I can ever imagine.  As I now spend the last months with her as she battles cancer I am going to tell myself and believe, that my mom is waiting for the day Annaboo comes to meet her.  Annaboo absorbed my tears the year after my mom died.  I sat on the floor in the lobby of the rescue and held her and cried.  My mom and Boo will be watching for one another when the day comes.  But tomorrow, it will probably be a quiet day of bookselling.  I will sit and remember things, I will try to concentrate on a book, but mostly I will be holding Annaboo again, wearing that blue sweater that I mended for my mom the day before she died.  And I will probably cry.