Mom, Part II: Thank You, God, for Helping Me Say Goodbye

[Mom and Dad, with brother, Neil, 1942]

       

After each of my parents died, if I had to use only one word to describe my feelings, it would be guilt about my Father [Posts 8/12/15 and 8/25/15], and anger at my Mother [9/11/15].  As I wrote in those posts, it took years for me to deal with and be healed of those emotions, because first they had to be brought from the unconscious to consciousness.

However, sometimes there is a shortcut, one that is spiritual rather than psychological.  It is provided by God’s Spirit.

I believe God tries to bring us healing by using dreams and increasing consciousness (which can come through prayerful reflection and/or the insights of others) to move us toward greater wholeness.  However, sometimes God's Spirit moves us toward healing even when we are still operating mainly unconsciously. This happened with my Mother, long before I fully understood the reasons for my anger at her, or the guilt I felt about avoiding being with my Father in the last weeks of his life as he was dying.  Part of that guilt was not only because I was not with Dad when he died, but because I also felt like I had not adequately said goodbye to him.

Mom was diagnosed with cancer about a year and a half after Dad died, when I was 16 and my younger brother, Alan, 14.  She was treated for awhile at the hospital in our little home town of Maddock, North Dakota.  But eventually she had to be moved to St. Luke’s Hospital in Fargo, which is 200 miles from Maddock.  My older brother, Neil, took leave from his work and stayed in a hotel near the hospital.  Various folks from Maddock would give  Alan and me rides to Fargo so we could visit Mom.

Eventually Neil called us to say Mom was nearing death.  This time it was our pastor, Elmo Anderson, who took us to Fargo.  Mom was so weak by then that we all had to wear gowns and masks when we went in to see her.

One of the things I have noticed over my many years of making visits to hospitals is that when folks are anxious and fearful, they tend to jabber.  A person can be dying right before their eyes, and folks will talk about the weather and whether the Twins won the baseball game last night.  That is why I take the family outside of the hospital room and instruct them:  I suggest that each of you go into the room alone, and talk to your father, mother, etc. alone.  Do two things.  Ask for forgiveness for anything that bothers you, and then tell them how much you appreciate their love and how much you love them.

Back to my Mother.  I stood off to the side, focused strictly on her.  I have no idea what everyone else was talking about, but I noticed she kept trying to raise her arm, which she could barely do, as weak as she was.  I could not figure out what she wanted or was trying to say. Finally I noticed that the sun was shining directly into her eyes.  I said, “Mom, do you want me to pull the window shade down?”  She smiled, and I went ahead and pulled it down.

Finally Pastor Elmo took out his bible and led us in a devotion and prayer.  Then everyone, including me, left the room.  As we entered the hallway and everyone began to take off their gowns and masks, I left mine on, told everyone to go on ahead, and explained that I would be along shortly.

I went back into Mom’s room and this time went right up to her bed.

She looked at me with such love, and the tears began to well up in my eyes.  “Mom,” I said, “I’m sorry I have to wear this mask because I really want to kiss you.  But I want you to know how much I love you and how much I appreciate all the things you have done for me.”

“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”  [Romans 8:26]

I'm Sorry, Mom, for Being So Angry at You

                               

                     (Ruth Lois Brown Erickson, 1918-1967)

Shortly before my first wife, Pauline, died (7/31/15 Post), she asked me.  “Bear, how come you talk so much about your Dad, but not much about your Mother?”

“Well,” I replied, “that’s because I’m angry at my Mother.”

“Why?” Pauline inquired.  “I thought she was a very gentle, warm, kind person, who would never hurt a soul.”

“Well, that’s true.”  I countered.  “But I am still angry at her.”

One of the most famous lines that came out of Watergate was Senator Howard Baker stating that the task regarding President Nixon was to find out what he knew and when he knew it.  I suppose that is an apt statement about the struggle for mental and spiritual health.  In these last reflections, as I have written about emotions like anger and guilt, I am looking back on my childhood experiences, and it is nearly impossible to know when I first consciously became aware of these emotions.  They start out unconsciously, and at some point force themselves into consciousness.

I don’t know what I said next to Pauline, but either then, or sometime later, I would explain my anger like this:  After my Father died, I really needed my Mother.  I did not want to be an orphan.  I knew she really missed my Dad, but why didn’t she struggle harder to survive?  Was her grief more important to her than her three boys?  Did she really try to beat the cancer?  Or did she just give in to it?

The passing years, including my work as a pastor, did not help matters.  As I saw some people just give in to illness, and others do everything possible to survive for as long as possible; as I learned about the psychological dimensions of some cancers, and the importance of the “will to live”; well, all that simply reinforced my anger.  Simply put, Mother should have fought harder to survive.

Now, of course, these are not the reflections of a rational and mature adult.  They are the reactive, emotional response of a lost, hurting, lonely and scared child.

In my last post (8/25/15) I wrote about the 10 years it took me to find healing for the guilt I felt about not having spent more time with my Dad as he died.  In my post of 7/31/15 I wrote about the 17 years it took to find healing of the anger I felt at God for the deaths of my parents.  Well, it took 15 years to find healing of the anger I felt towards Mom, and it finally occurred about a month and a half after Pauline died.

I had just returned to work.  I couldn’t concentrate.  I had no appetite.  I would go home at noon, and rather than eat, I would lie on the couch and cry.

One day, as I lay there, I reflected on an experience I had had between the deaths of my parents.  I had been in my room practicing my guitar, and then gone into the kitchen for a drink of water.  Mom was standing over the ironing board, working on a pile of clothes, and the tears were streaming down her face.  I asked her what was wrong, and she replied, “Oh, Brian, it’s nothing.”

Now, lying on the couch, remembering her gentle but sorrow-filled face, words burst forth from deep inside of me:  “Mom!  I love you!  I love you so much!  Now I understand.  Finally I understand the unbelievable emptiness you must have felt when Dad died.  Mom, I’m sorry for being angry at you!  I love you so much!  I need you so much!”

Then I addressed Dad in the same way.  And then Pauline, concluding, “The three most important people in my life are dead. They are gone.  Why must I live without the three people who loved me so much?”

Lying there, exhausted, it occurred to me. I had addressed Mom first.  Then Dad.  Then Pauline.

So often in life it is difficult for us to understand those we love most.  When we are young we often assume their struggles and pain are because of us.  This breaks our own spirits and keeps us from being able to truly understand those we love the most.  Sometimes it takes years before we go through our own experience of suffering in such a way that we finally understand the pain of others, including those we love most.

I lament that healing often takes so long, but I rejoice that it is always possible, if we don’t give up on the spiritual journey, even with it’s many, frustrating meanderings.  Life is a labyrinth, not a maze, and if we don’t stop, we will make it to the center, where insight and healing await us.