Today marks the second anniversary of my mother’s death. I called her “Mommie” all my life except when I started addressing her as “Mom” in public for the last five or so years. She DID NOT like it when I started calling her Mom. She stated she was “Mommie.” And that was that.
And so Mommie has now been gone for two years today. Two years. It does not seem like it’s been that long. Not at all. Two long years without that most precious person.
I’ve worked as a chaplain for over 16 years. I’ve dealt with all that goes with death and dying. I understand death is a part of living our lives. I understand sickness, accidents, and violence steal away our beloveds without an explanation. I understand there are no grief-removing words when it comes to asking God why.
But I now know all that understanding does not take away the gapping, aching, empty hole left in my heart and life when my mom died.
Since I was a little girl, I have absolutely adored my mother. Because she and my father divorced when I was one, we moved in with my grandparents and lived with them until I was seven (or eight?). My mom and I shared a bedroom with twin beds. I loved it when she and I would go to sleep at the same time. Inevitably, she would shout out into the dark, “Kay, stop swishing your foot!” I was a bad foot-swisher. And so I’d pull my foot out from under the sheet and wag it on top of the covers so she could go on off to sleep.
Sometimes when she’d put me to bed, I’d have my stuffed animals lined up on each side of my head on my pillow. “
Tex” the dog was my favorite so he’d always be right next to me. Then she’d tell me to lie on my stomach and she’d scratch my back ever so lightly with her long, painted fingernails. It worked better than any sleeping pill. I’d be out like a light in nano-moments. I’m pretty sure it was great for her, too. No more curious, active little girl underfoot for a few minutes of the evening!
When I was little, Mommie worked for the state of
Tennessee. (I grew up in
Nashville.) Every day she would come home at the same time . . . in time for supper. Those were the days we all—my grandmother, me, my grandfather, and Mommie—sat down at the table to eat supper together.
One afternoon when she wasn’t back home from work at her usual time, my grandmother casually remarked, “I hope she hasn’t been caught in a wreck with all that traffic.” Although my grandmother went on about her business, I grew terrified that something had happened to Mommie. I stationed myself in the den in front of the window that looked west to catch the first glimpse of her little powder blue Falcon.
I had seen a movie (only black and white of course) on TV about a man who was sick and dying and landed in a convent. The nuns gathered around him, took care of him and prayed for him. That’s the first time I had seen any one use the sign of the cross while praying. As the nuns gathered around the dying man’s bed (1960’s movie-orchestra music played to emphasize the spiritual moment), the man became miraculously well and lived.
As I faced west peering down our street into the setting sun watching for a little blue dot of a car to appear carrying precious cargo, I began to cross myself as I had seen in the movie. I was scared that my mom was in trouble. It worked in the movie and I hoped it would work for her—that it would bring her back home to me. I had to be secretive while performing the sign of the cross because if my staunch Southern Baptist grandmother caught me going Catholic, she’d go ballistic. I sat there completing the sign of the cross what seemed like hundreds of times until, finally, I spotted the blue Ford Falcon wheeling down the road then taking a sharp right into our drive. My little girl reasoning rejoiced that the sign of the cross worked! Just like in the movie!
I didn’t know that would be my pattern the rest of my life—worrying and praying about the status of Mommie’s life, seeking to pray her well, whole, new, happy, peace-filled, love-filled, God-filled, God-renewed. Although that smacks of codependency, it's one of the many ways I loved her.
Today she is all of those things I have prayed for.
I wrote the following words in my journal this past Sunday while I sat by her grave at
Springhill Cemetery in
Madison, Tennessee: I believe my little, sick mom is now with the One who died for her, who redeemed her struggling life. I believe the Good Shepherd cradled her in his arms upon her arrival on November 24, 2008. I believe his death and redemption for her on the cross and his welcoming, heavenly, cradling embrace of her at 2:30 AM on 11/24/08 healed,
made whole,
and perfected my mom.
She is now fully, wonderfully, and completely the “Shirley Armistead Neville” God created her to be. And probably, for the first time in her existence, she knows the fullness of being loved as well the richness and joy of loving fully in God’s presence.
Thank you, oh Lord, for preparing a place for Mommie. She always loved being home. Tell my Mommie I love her. I am so very glad she is now living with you in the house that God built. Praise be to the Lord. Amen.
