I have been spending more time in my
childhood city recently, visiting my mom as she transitions into assisted
living. Mother’s Day was spent with her
and my two adult children, the three of us traveling on a road trip to see the
woman who my children affectionately call grammsie. When I am there, I usually move between mom
and siblings and mom and childhood friends, visiting and spreading my time with
those all those I love. Right now I want
to spend all of my time with mom.
Mom links me to my beginnings. She gave me my first bridge into the
world. And we are at a transition time
in her life, when viewing the end becomes inevitable and unbearable. Three months ago, after her fall, I sat
alone, crying, not knowing how she was doing, if she was alive, 500 miles away
and helpless. I had never thought of
life without mom and for the first time that thought formed and I was
terrified. I am not ready to lose her. I
don’t want her to travel that final bridge into the unknown. I don’t want her to travel that final bridge
that cuts off hugs and conversation. I am not ready to lose her.
The three of us set out on our pilgrimage to
see mom. In our travels from north to
south we take a detour to the home of my growing up. Upon seeing the house, memories rush in. I
remember the life of seven, living in a house too small to hold both my family
and our varied pets. I remember an old
oak tree that sheltered our house and offered me a haven of space when the
inside became too crowded and chaotic for me.
I rested with my back on the trunk of that tree. We played ring-around- the rosy around that
tree. She was base for evening games of
capture the flag. I kissed my first
boyfriend under that tree. I read many a
book under that tree. That tree
providing shelter and stability. She was
a place where I could laugh and I could cry freely. Her roots ran deep and rooted me with her. And she reached to the sky and showed me a path upward.
The house still stands but the tree is a
stump now, cut down when my oldest was a newborn. On another pilgrimage to visit my mom, my
daughter, then three, and I went to say goodbye to that old house as my mom
moved to her post family home. As we
said our last goodbyes to a house filled with memories, my toddler daughter ran
to the oak tree stump and stood on her. Mom, she called excitedly, a bridge. A bridge for us to
walk over. A bridge to link us from
here to there.
My children are at the brink of
adulthood. They are traveling across the
bridge between childhood and adulthood.
Endings and beginnings…filled with excitement, fear and
anticipation. I imagine my son finishing
college and traveling to new places, possibly settling in one with an oak tree
of his own. I imagine my daughter soon
linking a child to her beginnings. As
mom was for me and as I am the link for both my son and my daughter,
remembering them when their skin was fresh and their future only offered
hope. One day they may be saying the
same words I am now saying about my mom…I
am not ready to lose you.
Yet, like I now am learning and live with my
mom, they too will also know, we only have this moment of hugs and
conversation. This moment--each
moment--is a bridge from a beginning to an end.
When I live this moment with fullness, my bridge becomes one of
gratitude. Gratitude links me from here
to there. It links us and brings us to
together as beginnings come and endings go.
Gratitude continues.
