It's still hard to remember this… but it helps to share it.

Reflections… at any age 

it's hard to see them leave.

(An interpretation of my column from back in 1990)

"I didn't know it would hurt so much!"  
This thought has been confirmed by others who had someone dear to them die - even though they were at an "old age".

And it was my thought as I drove home in the early morning dawn many years ago - after sitting with my 90-year-old mother as she died.

Now I was relatively mature… I'd raised two children… my father and in-laws had already passed away… I had studied psychology, religion, philosophy… but all their deaths hurt.

Pondering…

As I drove home alone I had a strange reflection… although I would miss her companionship, I realized that another reason it hurt so much was that I wouldn't be able to do anything for her anymore.
That thought surprised me!

You see, as a child I looked to mom to do nice things for me.  To hold me when I skinned my knee, to buy me a new dress for the first day of school… to make me a chocolate birthday cake.
But as the years passed and she got weaker, our roles changed.

Although…

Although it hurt to see her in pain and lonely, I focused on how much of a "high" I would get when watching her eyes light up when she saw me and exclaimed, "Rosemarie!"  (She's the only one who called me by my full name.)

And when I bought her a new dress she looked so surprised and pleased at the present and exclaimed, "At my age?"  (And I felt guilty that I hadn't done it before.)

Many situations...

Mom had various bouts with life threatening illnesses.  It almost got to be "normal".
One time when I headed to the emergency room I wondered if I was too complacent.  And when a friend said I was in "denial" and "dumb", (my friends express their opinions with me!), I wasn't sure they weren't right.
But Mom came out of it again, as usual.

This is strange…

Although I don't always take the time to hunt out the meaning of circumstances... recently I had been watching a particular ivy plant that I had had for years.  I don't have a lot of plants because I usually forget to water them.

Interesting…

This one had two different plants in one pot.
One ivy was from my mother-in-law and the other from my mom.

A few years ago the plant from my mother-in-law started drying up… and died.  I took it out of the pot the same time she died from a long term illness.

But my mom's ivy kept on growing until a few weeks ago when its leaves started drying up.
Finally I couldn't avoid it any longer.  I decided to remove the dry leaves and repot the plant.  I didn't know if it would make it or not.
And I forgot about the plant until after mom died.

Then I saw new growth was coming out where the dead leaves had been removed.
Kind of like coming alive again… although in a new environment.

And that was comforting too.