In Loving Memory

One would think I would get better at this whole death thing. 

After all, I’ve faced down death more than once in my life, most recently by fighting off cancer not once, but - if you count skin cancer - twice, in just two years. 

Thus, one would think I would be more gifted at what to say and how to best to comfort the people I love when they lose a loved one. 

My BFF is an incredibly kind, loyal and giving person. She stood by me during chemo and watched over me post-infusions, knitting away in my bedroom while I lay flat on my back in bed, unable to move from the overwhelming exhaustion that is the aftermath of chemo. She kept an anxious watch over me while she knitted all my adorable hats, rapidly and selflessly making hat after hat so my wig would look much more natural (it fooled a lot of folks with the addition of all those cute hats), and so I would have a variety of styles to choose from every day. 

She stood by me, and is easily the one person in addition to my daughter and grandbaby that I would happily take a bullet for, no questions asked.   

So, when she texted me last Friday to tell me her elderly mother was back in the hospital, it was nothing new - save that, this time, with no prior warning, it would turn out to be the last.  

Her beloved mother had a pulmonary embolism and the emergency room doctor bravely and honestly told my BFF that her mother likely had less than 24 hours to live.  I called my daughter; she arranged to get off work that night as early as humanly possible and I got on MapQuest to make sure I could navigate to the hospital in record time.  In a matter of minutes, we had it all planned out. 

But life, and now death, had other plans - because, less than 30 minutes later my BFF’s beloved mother was gone.  After everything she had been through physically over the years, she ended up slipping from this mortal coil with just a whisper and a sigh. 

And after all my BFF has done for me?  I could do nothing. 

I didn’t even make it to the hospital in time to fetch tissues and tea, or hold her hand, or anything.  Worse, when she called me while I was en route to home and told me her mother was gone, I did something entirely uncharacteristic, I promptly burst into tears, rendering myself totally useless just when she needed me the most.  Good one, Julie. 

It was entirely acceptable for me to get cancer, lose my hair, suffer in pain every single day and fight for my very life, but I subscribe to the double standard of life experiences:  I cannot stand for the people I love to be in pain of any kind, emotional or physical.  Worse, I was now powerless to ease her pain because, after having lost my own mother so suddenly, I was intimately acquainted with the grieving process.  I know, up close and personal, that grief is a solitary emotion, not one easily shared.  

Upon arriving home, I was still wreathed in tears, so my daughter knew instantly what had transpired.  My adult child is extremely intuitive, deeply compassionate, and very tuned in to those she is closest to.  Me, I just cried and blubbered like an idiot, and this when it wasn’t even my mom. 

In fact, truth be told, I cried far more when Jill lost her mom than I did when I lost my own mother.  With my own, I had to be strong, help my daughter through the loss.  This time around, I just let ‘er rip and cried my eyes out.  I loved and cherished her mom, but I love my BFF above all.  Knowing the depth of this loss broke my heart, so I cried not only for her passing, but for my BFF. 

Just an hour before all this transpired, my BFF’s husband had called to tell me about a rocking chair Jill’s mom had.  They had planned on moving her to a new care facility, one that they had hoped would better be able to address her mother’s considerable medical needs and physical limitations.  At this new facility, there would have been no room for the rocking chair. 

Jill’s mom loved Baby Claudia; she had held tiny Baby CJ for hours last Christmas and talked about her all the time.  Jill’s mom was a true mom to the end; she loved babies, her daughter Jill most of all.  It just seemed fitting that the rocking chair go to my daughter to rock Baby Claudia in.   

So, eventually, after all the trauma of coroners and doctors and paperwork were over and done with, Jill’s devoted husband delivered the rocking chair.  It was a sturdy thing; well made, of light blonde, solid wood.  We put it in my already overcrowded living room to admire the craftsmanship and to remember Jill’s mom. 

Then, something a little bit astonishing occurred.  Baby Claudia, with her impossibly tiny little legs, insisted on climbing up in the grown-up rocking chair.  An assist, a discrete lift up at the pampies and she was up and sitting and smiling in Fran’s rocking chair.  I reached over to rock her gently, her tiny chubby little legs sticking out straight in front of her, her little feet flutter kicking in excitement. 

Then, if that were not enough, Baby Claudia turned her smiling face away from me and began babbling into thin air.  She was having an actual conversation with something or perhaps someone that none of us could see.  Her expression was thoughtful and peaceful as she babbled away to someone or something that only she could see. 

Not everyone believes in an afterlife or spirits or guardian angels, and I’ve always been more of a science geek than a New Age Child myself, but if anyone were to ask me whom or what Baby Claudia was speaking to, I would bet on it being the soul or spirit of Jill’s mother, her new, self-anointed Baby Guardian Angel. 

Later that night, as I snuggled the baby, rocking her to sleep, I spoke to Claudia matter-of-factly.  I softly told her that Grammie Jill’s mom had gone to Heaven.  I also told her that Great-Grandma Fran would be watching over her.  And I promised that someday, far into the future, when I went to Heaven, that I too would always be with her.  I promised.  And then, right as she nodded off to sleep, totally secure in my loving arms, Baby Claudia sleepily reached out with a tiny, perfect, pudgy hand into the darkness of the room.  But not for me.  As she reached into the shadows, she was trying to grasp at something that only she could see.   

And as she drifted off, Baby Claudia smiled.