October 19, 2017 – Barbara St. John, my mom, 1924 to 10/19/2017

          I’ve been absent from my Blog for some time attending to life’s ups and downs. The first two full weeks of October, I drove up to Massachusetts and helped clean out Mom’s house with my brother, Ken.  Attic, house and basement.  I even did the “gardening” around the front yard in order to create a wonderful street appeal for the upcoming house sale.

          I am now a member of the “breaking up household of one’s parents” club and only those who have actually done such understand the process and overwhelming emotional toll it takes on you.   Flipping through wonderful old pictures found in desk drawers and fingering chipped china that was kept merely for sentimental reasons swamps one with unchecked emotions.

          Mom has been failing for some time and she was extremely frail.  She recognized me only in the mornings and then in the evening she asked my brother to bring back the “other” me.

          When I left her for the last time – about 10:00 a.m. on October 13, 2017, I hugged her good bye and said I was leaving for home.

          She said the most startling thing to me:

“The next time you see me, I’ll be in my box.”  She tipped her head coquettishly and smiled and there was a splendid lilt in her voice.

          It didn’t take me back as much as the thought was already in my mind.  My Mom always knew how to “upstage” any sweet parting over the years and this topped them all.

          “Yeah, Ma, I know.”  I whispered to her and smiled knowing that she was spot on as usual.  That is what she wanted and I knew she wouldn’t be with us much longer.   How soon, I didn’t know at the time.

          The evening of her death I had gone to ICC college for a cabaret review of  Gershwin.  I turned my phone off so as to not disturb the performance and missed the call from my husband letting me know that Mom had died quietly when she was being put to bed.

          One of the first songs of the evening was from Porgy & Bess, the one Mom loved so much of George Gershwin’s compositions.  Now that I think of it, it is sort of ironic that I thought of Mom during that entire song and how she would have loved to have heard her old favorite.  She would have sung along as she knew all the words. Me, I only knew half of them.  At the time, I didn’t know that she was probably taking her last breath.  But, later when I thought back at what I was doing at the time of her death, I realized the coincidence of it.  Maybe at the moment of her death her soul had fleeting come to me and she enjoyed her favorite song one more time with me.

          Long distance I have been planning the funeral with my brother, Ken.  I’ll fly up next week to attend.

          I had been praying for a quiet, no fanfare [hospital or nursing home, or pain] death for some time for my Mom because that is what she wished.

          She is at peace now.

          Mom, always the lady, knew when it was time to leave a party and she waltzed out of my life – right on her cue – as if she planned it that way.

          I will  share with you the poem she wants read at her funeral.

          Hopefully I can say it out loud without falling apart. We shall see.

          Me, I’m okay.  She will never be far from me because she is forever in my heart.  She had a wonderful life.  A life we will celebrate with friends and family next week.

A Talk with God

Today I had a talk with God,

Out in a field of goldenrod,

As grasses rippled in the wind,

Some things just needed saying then.

As blackbirds glistened ‘neath the sun,

My little sorrows one by one,

Stirred sleepy wings and flew from me,

Into God’s great infinity.

I walked beside a shallow creek,

And through the silence heard Him speak,

And once important things to me,

Seemed smaller than they used to be.

I sat beneath a shady oak,

Where dreams of long ago awoke,

And here within this quiet place,

I met my Maker face to face.

Through forest trail and underbrush,

I heard the plaintive hermit thrush,

Departing from the beaten track,

I got my lost perspective back.

Returning then from whence I came,

I knew my life was not the same,

Since I had talked awhile with God,

Out in the field of Goldenrod.

By Grace E. Easley