And in the end
– The Beatles, The End
The love you take
Is equal to love you make”
23 December… Happy Festivus! My favorite (and only, I guess LOL) pop-culture holiday. Two years ago I half-joked, “Festivus will never be the same!”
Chief Daddy pays no mind to the calendar, but he’s straight on today being Wednesday because of his pill keeper. I have not yet advised him that today is the 23 December and the second anniversary of my mom’s death.
My Story About My Parents
My mom died two weeks before my parents’ 52nd wedding anniversary. They spent so much time apart in the early years of their marriage; somewhere in the middle they created a family of three children and two grandchildren; they were together everyday in last decade of their marriage.
They stayed married “till death do us part”.
I stay amazed at their commitment to each other for more than five decades after getting married two weeks after they met. (The best I’ve done is stay committed to my Keets and to one cellphone carrier for more than two decades.)
In the video I mentioned yesterday, Mommy cited give and take is the secret of a long marriage. I love how she told me it was a silly question. She was right.
Love is simple. The heart of their love story is the same love story of any couple who surrendered to the “pure Language of the World”.
Because, when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you… And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.”
– Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
My Story
I feel like I’ve exhausted everything I have to say in other blog posts. The moment of her slipping away remains an intimate memory. One moment she was still taking breaths, and then she wasn’t.
And I felt relieved that she let go. Maybe the relief I felt was my release from being a bystander, watching her suffer. Maybe the relief I felt was Mommy’s energy… the release of a weight… the weightlessness of peace… the lightness of love.
I remember sending short, individual messages to tell the need-to-know and previously-reached-out friends that Mommy stopped breathing and the medical team called her time of death five minutes later. I have no Facebook memory of announcing her death that night, but it’s the highest likelihood that I avoided both the play-by-play and opening the door for comments. Much like my mom was still trying to be a gracious hostess before she died, I would have felt obligated to respond or react to comments. I didn’t have the energy, and as grateful as I felt for others’ care, I still needed to focus on myself, my family, and especially my dad.
We hold the power of keeping our own privacy, our own peace.
I felt no urgency… a few hours, a day… the news would not change.
Mommy died…
She died the way she wanted to…
Dignity.
I was catching up with a friend the other day, talking about endings. I feel happy that he and I have years of making memories from tossing Beatles lyrics back and forth.
I sent, “The love you take…” and he replied, “Is equal to the love you make.”
Luceat lux vestra.
❤️