2.27.2006

I sat beside your bed...#7


I sat beside your bed a year ago today, watching as you slowly slipped from this world. You laid there so peacefully your dark brown eyes looking towards the door as if waiting for someone to come and take you from this earthly place.

I studied your face closely trying to commit to memory every line. I held your hand and spoke softly to you so that even in this moment I might reach you heart. A heart that I spent everyday of my life trying to reach, to touch, to sir the love that I knew was lock there.

Anger is my companion today festering in my stomach like soured food. Yes I am angry, not at you but at your inability to love me. To at least in the end acknowledge the fact that it was me, “the unwanted child” that cared for you with love and respect. That held your hand until your last breath was taken. That made sure your wishes were carried out and you died in my home with your family around you.

I am struggling to find the good memories, the ones a child should have of a parent. I am trying to silence the hurtful words that ring in my ears. Stop the endless loop of images of you turning your back, rolling your eyes and sending me away.

Yet in the middle of all the turbulence there is this ache, a longing to see you just one more time. An emptiness and loss that no action I can take will fill or change. So many unresolved issues you took with you as you stepped into the arms of death. So many things that could have been finished, put to rest, that now never will be. As I sit here today I wonder how different our lives might have been if you could have loved or I could have found a way to have reached you on an emotional level?

Losing someone you love is never easy. When you lose them to death the pain cuts away a small piece of your soul. The loss of your last surviving parent strikes at your very foundation. Leaving you with the realization that now you are truly without the core of your birth family, an orphan, at what ever age.

I offer this to you and to my self today.
Listen to those you love with an open mind and heart. Tell them you love them every day. If you can’t say the words show them in some way they are loved. Gift them with your time. Give them wonderful memories that they can cherish when you are not with them. Above all resolve your issues. We are not promised tomorrow, don’t leave them to wonder what if.

Rest in peace Mom, I love you.


Red

8 comments:

Christina K Brown said...

{{{{{{{{{{{{Red}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Bon & Mal Mott said...

This is so sad, Red. Often parents seem not to realize the damage they do to their children when they are remote or actively rejective. I'm sorry that that was your experience.
Hugs,
Mal

TJ said...

Your love and forgiveness at her deathbed was more for your soul then hers...she died taking regret with her. Find comfort knowing that you are not left carrying that cross of pain in her footsteps. You know the difference, let the inner child be at peace. Let {{{Red}}} stand tall in forgiveness and love.
TJ

Tammy Brierly said...

Red, this was very sad. I was an "unwanted child" and never got to work it out. She died scuba diving at 44. I still mourn for what could have been and the why. You have touched me deeply with your message.

BIG HUGE HUGS to you :)

I'm sorry for them both.

Delcano said...

Tenderly spoken and poetically felt.
Spencer

Bedazzzled1 said...

This is a heartbreaker. And I am so sorry you experienced it.

V said...

Red, there`s so much pain & sadness here.
When my Mom & Dad married, my father converted to Catholicism. His father, a strict German Lutheran & Mason, disowned him. They didn`t speak for 20 years. Yet, when my Grandfather was dying, bedridden, it was my mother who took care of him. I think they would have understood your sadness.
Hugs,
V

Chris said...

What beautiful words for such a sad, sad situation. Stirring, moving, and in an odd way comforting to me.

Chris
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