Saying Goodbye to My Mom - One Last Thought

While this last post about my mom isn't religious or even reflective on Judaism, these last few posting have been so helpful to me that I needed to solidify one last thought and there was no place else for me to do that.

While she was ill and out of it, my mom called out several times for my grandfather saying "daddy, daddy, daddy".  I had asked her about it during the times when she was better and she knew she was calling for him but didn't know why.  I had thought maybe he was the one who comforted her when she was sick as a girl but she said that wasn't the case.

One particular day in the hospital when she was miserable she didn't ask for her father but instead for my father.  She kept saying, "I want my husband" over and over.  My father had a lengthy illness and my mother had cared for him for almost ten years consuming most of her life during her 40's.  He has been gone for over twenty years and I have never heard her express missing him.  I was so heartbroken hearing her call for him that day.  I don't remember much about their marriage prior to his illness but I know from stories that they were very much in love in their early years.  I kept wondering if she was calling for him because she missed him, missed the way he used to be, or if she knew she was dying and she was ready to be with him.

Anyway, years ago my mom had given me a black and white photo of the two of them from their engagement and I have had it in my bathroom where I have a collection of my favorite, personal black and white photos.  Each morning, I now look at the photo of my smiling parents - so happy and so in love - and although it still makes me so sad to be reminded that my mother is gone, I find such comfort seeing them together and hoping that they truly are together once again.