Oh, and trust me, this is the only picture you will ever see of me in a swim suit!
O Saint Joseph, we pray to you for those who are out of work, for those who want to earn their living or support their families.
You who are the patron of workers, grant that unemployment may vanish from our ranks; that all those who are ready to work may put their strength and abilities in serving their fellowmen and earn a just salary.
You are the patron of families; do not let those who have children to support and raise lack the necessary means. Have pity on our brothers and sisters held down in unemployment and poverty because of sickness or social disorders. Help our political leaders and captains of industry find new and just solutions. May each and every one have the joy of contributing, according to his abilities, to the common prosperity by an honorable livelihood. Grant that we may all share together in the abundant goods God has given us and that we may help underprivileged countries. Amen.
My hand touched the broken doorknob on the storm door like it had countless times before. This time was different. I was not in control of my hand. An automatic response had taken over. As my body was going through the actions my mind was in a completely different place. I walked over the threshold into the living room. The smell of stale urine and sickness filled my nostrils. The sound of my sister weeping filled my ears. I had prepared myself for this moment for seven months. I had rehearsed the scene in my head over and over again deciding how I would react. Now that I was living in the moment all I could allow myself was to stare.
I walked over to the hospital bed. My sister continued to weep, loud hiccuping sobs coming from deep within her. “I’m sorry I didn’t wake up in time,” she choked out over and over again. I reached out for my mother’s hand. It was warm. My heart filled with hope for a moment as I stared at her chest. I was allowing myself to see it move. I moved my hand to her wrist feeling for a pulse. I knew then it was over. I laced my fingers through hers and sat on the edge of the bed.
I do not know how long I sat there. It seemed like hours, but I know it could have only been a minutes. I could not take my eyes from her. The fuzz that covered her head was sticking up like newborns after they first enter the world. Her face was swollen and from months of steroid use. Her eyes were closed. Dark blue and gray shadows encircled them from months waging a war within her body and mind. I reached out to touch her face. She was so completely still. If I would not have known the truth, I would have thought she was asleep.
The silence was replaced by the front and rear doors opening at the same time. Two nurses and my father converged upon the cramped living room. My dad boomed, “Well?” One nurse used her stethoscope to listen to my mother’s chest as the other nurse comforted my sister. “She’s gone,” the nurse said. My sister cried harder, my dad left the room; I took my place at the head of her bed. We all stood in silence. I felt like I should be crying or angry, just feeling something, anything. I could not.
My dad came back into the house, not crying, but angry. “She was awake at six o’clock when I left for work. How did this happen so quickly?” I suddenly remember feeling so aware that she was all alone when she died. It was not part of my plan. I was supposed to be there holding her hand, helping her move on to the next place. I was suddenly overcome with a sense of betrayal that my plans were not playing out the way I had intended.
The nurses donned plastic gowns and prepared to bathe my mom. My feet would not allow me to move from the head of the bed. Like a guard watching my post, I did not move. They filled a yellow basin with warm water. They undressed her and covered her with a quilt covered in pink ribbons. The carefully washed her from head to toe. When they were washing her legs, I could not take my eyes from the blue and purple mottled spots that covered them.
My mom’s closest friend arrived while they were bathing her. No one had called her. She knew that she needed to come . Her friend asked to put lotion on her. I watched as one last gift of kindness was shared as she tenderly rubbed lotion onto her body. The nurses dressed her in a new blue nightdress that I had purchased the week before. They had to cut the back open to fit over her now stiff head that was determined to stay tilted to her right shoulder. Once they were finished, they covered her with the afghan that had once been my great grandmother’s. They placed her hands together over the blanket. She now looked like every other dead person that I had ever seen; only she was my mom.
For the next hour family came in the house as we waited for the staff of the funeral home to arrive. Her brother and sister-in-law, her great aunt, and her stepmother sat with her, held her hand, and somberly said their goodbyes. My father has never been an affectionate man, but he stood next to me and rubbed the top of her nearly bald head for a long time.
The black hearse pulled into the driveway. As the two men walked to the house, a wave of amusement bubbled within me. Life is a series of occurrences, some of them memorable, some not. The man that had come to collect my mother’s body was the same boy that I had shared my first kiss with in school yard fifteen years before. I wanted to ask him if he was as struck by the oddity of it as I was. I did not though. It would have not been appropriate.
The men moved her from the bed to the gurney. The sound of the zipper made my stomach churn. My dad had to leave the room. He asked them not to cover her face. I watched them place her body in the back of the hearse and drive off. As quickly as everyone came into the house, they left. I was completely alone, and she was gone.
