The Death Watch
by Ricardo
(U.S.A.)
I am burying my one hundred year old mother tomorrow. These last few months have not been pleasant ones for yours truly.
I guess, as many others in the family thought, that she would just keep on living, even though she was VERY elderly.
She was a product of two "world wars", many other battles throughout the world, a great depression, the flu epidemic of 1918 that took her father and one year old sister within days of each other, severe poverty....yet she pressed on and would not give in of late to death itself!
My mother had been in a health care facility for the past ten years, and as she aged, she lost most of her friends and relatives, as well as five roommates at the facility over the years....yet she pressed on with her life as the small world around her continued to shrink.
She was a wonderful example for me with her daily "rosary", and various other prayers....she prayed for the world and all its short comings and aggravations.
She was a modest, loving, caring, saintly person who just happened to be blessed with one hundred years of life......seldom complaining.....just carrying on the best she could.
As life would have it, my father and her were in the same facility for a few years....he passed on some five years ago. He had been a "controller" during all of their seventy years of marriage, but she allowed it...that's just the way it was back then. When my father passed on, mother began to "blossom."
I have often thought of what she might have done had she not been "under" my father's thumb all those years. She once commented to me, "I will never forget, BUT,I will forgive him".....that was mother, my sweet, dear mother!
Then last week one of my brothers flew in from out of state after I shamed him into helping support me during the "death watch" that I would be facing. He had planned on coming in only after "the call", and her demise. We have not been on good terms for the past few years.
I am here, and he is there.....the burden and problems when they arose, "I owned"......did not like it, but I had no choice. I developed a certain amount of resentment over the years, and to this day find it difficult to shake. Well, as uncomfortable as I was at the "death watch" with him, watching our mother die, and she lingered on for days.....I began to think, was my mother in fact lingering on so that my brother and I were forced to speak and mend some fences?
There as I watched her die, I realized that powers stronger then man, and perhaps as strong as my dear frail 88 pound mother were at work during this "Death Watch", perhaps her prayers were answered....they are a powerful force, and on her death bed she knew that.
Peace to all....cherish your loved ones, and learn from them....even as they lie at deaths door!
Wendy: WOW, Ricardo -- ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD? And your dad died only five years ago? That means you are very likely to have a long long retirement too!
Nice story and nice reflection back on your mother... sending prayers your way.
