My mother-in-law, Mildred Maulding, passed away last night, just one hour short of the New Year Pacific time and well into the New Year, Eastern Time. Several platitudes apply: "At 97, she lived a good, long life"; "In the end, she was at peace", and the list goes on. None of them ring quite true. Although I am grateful that the end-of-life pain, struggle, and anxiety is now behind Mildred, I am very aware that the grieving has only begun and of all the people Mildred knows and has touched, I think Barry, her son and my husband, will be most affected. Although, as is true for most Northwesterners, the untrained eye will be unable to see the burden of grief that Barry will carry for the foreseeable future.
Although Mildred has been on a roller coaster most of the year, with an infection scare that looked like the end of her life in October, it was still hard to believe that she would die this week. On Christmas Day, she stopped eating. Shortly thereafter, she stopped drinking. Yet still, the inevitable next step was not real, not believable. But when the Southwest Airlines' fiasco filled up most of the available seats on airplanes flying west, the urgency of heading out to Oregon seemed to finally take hold of both of us. Barry left on a full plane on Friday night to Seattle and drove to Oregon on Saturday. Although Mildred did not wake up during the last hours that Barry was able to share with her, I am absolutely sure that she was aware of his presence and I don't find it at all hard to believe that it was Barry who she was waiting for before she finally stepped away from this world and into the next.
I believe that Mildred is now in heaven, although I still have no clarity on what the transition to heaven looks like or what heaven looks or feels like. As the losses have piled up over the last few years, my hope has gone in the other direction to the point that I hang onto my faith with the wispiest of threads, hoping (ironically) that the Holy Spirit, Father, or Son will intervene and bolster that thread back into a much sturdier rope.
Today is not about me and yet I ramble about me. Sigh.
As Barry passes over the threshold of his mother's death and into the garden of the surreal, my heart hurts for him. Taking care of all the details, getting affairs in order... while logical, reasonable, and rational for any Northwesterner to do, will be shrouded in that dismal, painful finality of death. And the winter rains and the incessant gray overcast will not exactly serve as a mood booster.
In the peaceful sadness and quiet solitude of New Year's day here in Florida, there is solace and time for prayer. And given my propensity for doing rather than being, God is probably wondering "Who's that calling my name?"
It's me, God. Your lost sheep once again gone astray. If you have a moment, would you mind chasing me down? again. And, give Mildred a big hug from me (and much more importantly, a big hug from Barry).
