The Most Intimate Gift

All I had ever wanted was for her to embrace me.You know, the way a mother does with her child. I wanted her to tell me how wonderfully I had turned out. What a fine adult I had become.There was no chance of that ever happening now.

I got the call on a Wednesday afternoon. I was doing leg presses on my Bow Flex. The caller I.D.read 'State of Maine'. I knew what they were calling about and instinctual I began to cry.

I was given away to the neighbors at birth.There was always a promise that someday I would be brought home to my family to live. I think at 45 I was still in my own very funny way, waiting.

My mother had been a ward of the state of Maine since my birth. I had met her a few times.The family who raised me had done the absolute best that they could.

We always want more though.The fairy tale. One home, two parents, siblings sitting across the table who smile back at us with the same quirky smile.

I had always thought that one day,when the time was right,I would reunite with my mother. All that wonderful stuff you see on the 'After School Specials' would happen to me. I had visited her a handful of time throughout the years, brought my children to visit and a husband or two.The reuniting fantasy that I kept alive deep within in the yearning child who still exists in my heart always wanted that warm ,welcoming,embrace.

The Social worker on the other end of the phone said she needed to tell me that my mothers cancer had spread throughout her body and I should know that she probably had about six weeks left to live. I asked some questions being that I am an  "End of Life Coach".Then I hung up.Then I was no longer an "End of Life Coach", but a daughter. I began to sob.

I cried for the child in me whose mom was dying.

I cried for that impossible dream that was never going to come true.

I drove to Maine a few days later,as early as I possibly could.

I entered the nursing home where my mother had lived for years.

I went to her room.

She was lying there in her bed. I know what death looks like and it was there.Fully embracing this women who had captured my imagination as my mother.

I looked at the nurse who had entered the room with me. I whispered "This women hasn't got six weeks left to life, this women hasn't got six hours". The nurse assured me that my mother was a lot better when she was awake.

I looked, doubtfully, at my daughter who accompanied me on this trip ,and got us each a chair.

I took my mothers long thin tapered fingers in my hand, the first time in my life.

She was sleeping so I got real close up near to her face and looked at her graceful long Grey and black eye lashes. I looked at those beautiful cheekbones that i had been seeing everyday in the mirror. There she was,my mom, so close and so very near to the exit door.

I bent forward and placed my cheek on her and breathed in the smell of her. I was making memories.

She moved and opened her eyes.

"Hi Ma I said ,It's me,Bettina. She nodded. She mouthed the words for the first of many times "I love you."

I said "I love you too".

Instinctively I wanted to run. I wanted this not to be happening. I wanted to not be the grown up, well seasoned, "End of Life Care Coach". I wanted to be the little kid.

I got hold of myself.

I told her everything.

I told her that I had been well taken care of my whole life.

She mouthed "I love you".

I told her that though I may not have been raised by her that it had made me strong and capable.That I had learned a lot and that I was going to be fine.

She mouthed "I love you".

I told her that I had loved her everyday of my life and would always love her,

She nodded she told me she loved me and then she closed her eyes.

She drew in one breathe.She drew In another breathe.

I waited for the third.Then I waited some more.

It never came.

All My life I waited for some sort of intimacy with my mother and had been denied.

Then,in a moment without fanfare I had been granted the most intimate of moments.

I looked at my daughter.We both begin to cry and at the same moment said "oh wow she waited for us".

I sat with her for a few minutes.She might still be in this room,watching me,feeling my presence and that of my daughter.

I held her hand and rubbed her hair until she was cold.

I am not sure how I feel about what followed,I asked to bathe her but when I stepped out of the room to call her family ,the aids hurriedly bathed and changed her clothes.I felt robbed by that.Bathing her would have allowed me some closure,I did not want to wallow in any sadness.

What followed is more a story about a child separated from her biological parents then an End of Life coach...maybe some day i will write about it again.

Comments

[Sheri Goddard]

Bettina,
My heart goes out to you. I had a decent childhood but always wished for more too. I am so sorry about your Mom but so happy for you, you got to hear those words and were right there with her. I just lost my younger brother. The work you are doing is so needed.
Thanks for sharing this.