Mom died a year ago today. August 24, 2008. I was out of town in a place where cell phone reception is rare. The 7:00 AM call came through...the first in a string of “miracles”. The ring tone I selected for them woke me up and I was sure it was Mom calling to say Dad was having a bad reaction to the Chemo. But it was Dad. In the space between “Sharon?” and the next two sentences I felt relief. He must have forgotten I was out of town. And then “I can’t wake up your mother. I think she’s dead.” I didn’t ask if he was sure or ask if he had called the nurse. I said I was sorry and would be there as soon as I could. . . I reminded him I was out of town and he remembered.

My husband,George, had woken up, listened and knew. He held me as I sobbed. It was one of those deep uncontrollable, surprising sobs that confirmed my genuine grief.  I was grateful for that natural reaction. From her spirit place she saw and knew that I really loved her.

I wanted to get back into bed and cry until I couldn't anymore, but there was no time. I needed to wake my daughter so she could get the kids up. Fix breakfast because a five year old and a one year old cannot travel 3 ½  hours without. Make coffee because it is the only strong drink I allow myself. On the way home I slept and woke and silently cried so the children would not be scared, made phone calls to my brothers and my son and a funeral home and held George’s hand when he offered it. I kept hearing my father’s two sentences. I still hear those sentences in the middle of the night or in the middle of traffic or in the middle of a thought.

George dropped me off at their Assisted living apartments. The staff gave silent sympathy as I walked past the sign-in without stopping. On the bulletin board by the stairs my mother’s death notice was already posted. I saw myself walking up steps and down the hall...forcing myself to take those steps when I really wanted to run away.

I walked in the apartment and saw my mother in her reclining chair, dressed, hair clips, mouth open wide. Dad was sitting in his recliner next to her. A woman was sitting with him. I first thought it was someone from the center because I had called to talk with the nurse to make sure Dad had notified them and to see if this was really true. She said “Your mother has no pulse. I'm sorry. What funeral home do you want to use? Since they didn’t select one your Dad is waiting for you.” He was sitting with her dead body in his apartment waiting for me. I wasn’t as polite as I had been trained. “You left him there alone????!!!! Can’t you sit with him until I get there?” The nurse said she would send someone. But it wasn’t someone from the center it was my cousin, Dorothy, who lived an hour away but I hadn’t thought to call. Dad sent her an email. The man who wanted nothing to do with computers, who had retired from the research lab when computers were coming, who was finally “tricked” into using an email machine by my brother, had sent an email out to my cousin about finding his wife dead and waiting for me to come. My cousin normally doesn’t look at her email on a Sunday morning. But that morning she did. (miracle #2).

She quietly left as I held Dad as best I could. I had never seen him so lost. His rational mind was sporadic. He had called my brothers and sent emails, but wouldn’t leave the room when the funeral men arrived, believing she may wake up when they put her in the bag. They didn’t zip it completely respecting his hope. Later I understood he needed that time with her. If he had been able to voice his wishes, she would have stayed there, in her chair. Three days later at the "family only" visitation he stood by the coffin for awhile then left the room to wait for the funeral, closed casket, as requested by mom. As the time neared he said "one more time" and he struggled to get up and walk as quickly as he could to the casket before it was closed.  When we left the cemetery he broke down again and admitted he knew it was crazy but he believed she would wake up.  "Now it's so final."

So many times he said "if she knew how hard this was going to be for me she wouldn’t have done this." She had told him a few weeks before she was praying to God to go first. What I didn’t tell him was that it was my hope too. She feared his death more than her own and had confided in me that she checked on Dad during the night to see if he was breathing, just like you do with babies and one night she was terrified that he had passed because he looked so bad after this round of intensified chemo.

We all thought dad would die first and I didn't know what I could d0 to help mom. Most of our family uses humor to cope.  Mom did not. Most of what we found funny made no sense to her. When they moved out of their home into the Assisted living apartment she gave me her collection of Erma Bombeck books. I kept them because they were the only thing I ever saw that guaranteed mom's laughter. I envisioned reading them to her after dad passed.

A little over a month before I had been in a sweat lodge on the Ojibwa reservation. I planned to ask for healing for my parents, but as often happens in a sweat the deeper truth emerges and my request was for a peaceful transition to the next world.  The sweat lodge leader had suggested we return to the site the next day to take a piece of the rocks, tobacco and cedar and keep in a pouch as remembrance of the sweat. I did that, but lost track of the pouch. On the day of mom’s funeral the pouch showed up on the kitchen table. I had not remembered until then what it was I had prayed for. No one in the house had found it and put it there. My guess is my year old grandson was directed to put it there. He kept talking about seeing great grandma around. That day he was laying down laughing and said "gamma tickling me"  (miracle #3). This morning I went to mom’s grave stone and emptied the contents of the pouch by the grave. It isn’t just mom’s grave now. Dad died 27 days later. During those 27 days…almost a moon cycle…we talked and cried and shared more than we ever had. Today doesn't seem as sad as I had imagined.