My Mom and Mother's Day

Special moments of days gone by out in the garden area together just holding hands.

My mom during our brief FaceTime on Mother's Day.

So many treasured memories over these past several years of sitting out in the garden area of her assisted living holding hands with my mom and just enjoying the gift of being together. All along I’ve deeply treasured these moments together because I’ve understood the nature of impermanence.

Mother’s Day this year with my mom has been bittersweet. One of her amazing caregivers called so we could FaceTime. Mom’s eyes were open and she smiled. It was so fleeting before her eyes were closed again. It’s like a switch is on and then is suddenly switched off. That’s the way it is with late stage Alzheimer’s. But we had these brief moments of connection.

Less than an hour later Ron and I arrived for a window visit. I knew that my mother had been very tired and hadn’t eaten. But I was hoping that she’d rally some and be able to be awakened a little for our visit and her dinner. Mom was able to briefly open her eyes just a little. And that was it. So I just watched as my mother peacefully slept. And I spoke through the window.... Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. I love you....

On May 13th it will be two months since I was last able to hold hands with my mom. If things were different I’d be there most every day, just being with my mother, holding her hand, kissing and hugging her, just sitting by her side as she sleeps. The coronavirus changed all that. So it’s bittersweet. I get to see my mom, but not touch her. And, regardless of these changes, there’s still love, the love that does not die.

Gratefully, my mother is at peace. She is surrendered into each moment as they rise and fall and rise and fall again. She has had enough memory loss that she does not question why I see her outside her window or over the phone during Facetiming together. The peace that she has experienced for some time now evaded my mom throughout most of her lifetime when she was imprisoned in the torment of her mental illness. But no more. 

Now there is this other illness, but one in which my mother still has her moments of being able to let love in. And while I grieve that I cannot be the one holding her hand now, I am comforted in knowing that her caregivers are holding her hand and that my mom is able to feel their tenderness and love. And through the window and over the phone, she can feel my love, too. In the end, this is the greatest gift that we bring to one another.

Bless us all as we struggle with the losses of these times. And may we again and again return to what most matters — to be tender and kind and compassionate and loving. Because everything is impermanent.

❤

Molly