There are times during your life when there are no words. The time of a death - the time when you hold your infant for the very first time, and the time when the person who you are most in love with - declares they love you too.
To get you caught up, Friday September 27th will be my husband's 50th birthday and the 1st anniversary of my Mother's death. Yes, my mother, Anne Gaines Swygert, died in the arms of my brother on my husband's birthday. The only comfort I have is that she was not alone.
Me and my husband were driving from Dallas Texas to Greensboro NC to bring her to back to Dallas when my brother called to tell me that "Momma is gone". I couldn't speak. There were no words.
- I desperately needed to spend time with her
- I needed to see her
- I needed to listen to Prairie Home Companion with her on our patio
- I needed to smell her - her favorite scent was Wings
- I needed to watch Masterpiece Theatre with her
- I needed to tell her I loved her again, and again and again
- I needed to watch Antique Road Show with her and its countless spinoffs
- Most importantly I just needed my Momma
I have always loved my Momma. There were no teenage or young adult years of regret, or temper tantrums. Every impromptu card, letter and daily telephone call would end with
I love you. I have never nor will ever love anyone like I loved my mother. I even believe I respected her more than I loved her.
She was brilliant, beautiful and well-read. She was a great seamstress, and a fabulous cook. She was strong and quite vocal. She was amazingly supportive, loving, and stern. She was a mother. I must have been 8 or 9 when I had trouble zipping my dress in the back. I asked her for help, she replied "What would you do if I died tomorrow". I said, "I wouldn't buy a dress with a zipper in the back". From that day forward she never purchased another dress with a zipper in the back for me.
She gave me a strong sense of self, family, and community. Bullies in the neighborhood tried to break me. I would listen to their hurtful words and in my head reply "But you are not reading on your grade level". If only they knew how feeble their attempts were. Mean spirited girls on campus would attempt to offer insults. Now I was more confident in my voice, so I openly replied "I could give you half of my GPA and you would no longer be on academic probation". Bullies in relationships would try to chip at my self confidence under the guise of "constructive criticism". Complaints ranged from my hair was too thick, my lips too full, my thighs too muscular, my voice too proper, or my skin too shiny. In a telephone conversation with my mother I would surmise their critiques as self loathing. After all, none of the men I dated, had books, bookshelves, a stamped passport, a Money Market account, or lived more than 300 miles from their birthplace. She laughed and said "Oh my".
After we buried my mother in NC and returned home to Dallas, time stood still. Nothing mattered. Food did not taste the same, I lost 20 pounds. Water was not a necessity I became dehydrated. One day my husband left to go to work, kissed me on the cheek as I sat on the couch, and told me he loved me. Twelve hours later he came through the front door to discover I had not moved from that spot on the couch. The remote was still in my hand the TV not turned on, the glass of orange juice not touched - the juice had separated from the ice. The dogs still outback. He helped me off the couch and put me in the bed and placed the comforter over my body. I placed it over my head. There were no words.
I received the telephone call that my father died, I called my brother and said "Daddy died". There were no words. Yes, Five days after we buried my mother my father died. There were no words. It was difficult to make the calls to family and friends because they were shocked and rightly so. But many, people replied with Are you serious? One Grief Minister friend said, "Let me call you back". One friend I emailed replied with "WTF". There were no words.
This journey - is one that God has made. I have a relationship with God. I am not a chapter/verse kind of Christian. I know God for myself...I have felt God's presence.
Don't want you to feel sad for me - I just want you to know that my journey is not unique - it's just a
journey...others have had MORE DIFFICULT but others have much BETTER lives than mine. There is no understanding...there is no rhyme or reason there are no words.
