An Uncommon Woman

"My soul finds rest in God alone;
my salvation comes from him
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
He is my fortress, and I shall never be shaken."
(PSALM 62: 1 - 2)

I was driving along the road, my current profession of over the road truck driver finds me in that condition more often than not, when I received the call. My sister called and told me that my mother had passed. She said it was peaceful and that my father had been with her when she went. Then, her exact words I seem to recall, "Oh my God, are you driving?" It was a little late for that question. But I assured her it was okay. I had gotten quite used to the idea of getting big news while working. Word that my grandmother had died, word that my wife didn't want me to come home because she wanted a divorce, word that my older daughter (who'd become married a mere two months prior) was now pregnant . . . with twins. And now, while working, I receive news that my mother was no longer with us.

I don't want anyone to think me cold. It is just simply that life is, and I deal with it as such. Later I could react on an emotional level, and still often do. But at that moment, it needed to be absorbed as fact.

It came as small surprise that she had passed. It had not even been a week since the last call that she was hospitalized and that she had no more than twenty four hours to live. I got this news while working as well. I was in Florida. I immediately made arrangements, with help from my boss and sister, to fly home.

There, I got to see my mom. She had an oxygen thing strapped to her face, forcing air into her no longer functioning lungs. It hurt to see her in pain. My perception of pain, of course, since my sister pointed out that she was on medication so as not to be in any discomfort. It is my belief, however, that if you cannot do what you could do before on your own and were being forced, that was also pain. Maybe not all physical, but pain nonetheless. Here was a machine forcing air into and out of her. Here were tubes feeding saline solution and morphine into her body. Here were nurses, all of them caring and helpful but still just doing a job, taking blood and temperature and blood pressure all day long.

I talked to her, told her I loved her, let her know it was okay. And told her a secret. Her granddaughter was having boys, Bailey and Chamberlain; her great -grandsons. But of course she had known this; it was a secret that we pretended she didn't know. Yet to tell her, openly, and watch her nod in acknowledgement; that was the thing.

So we all sat with her; my dad and my sisters and myself, along with four of her adult grandchildren. We talked to her. She was aware that we were there, she responded to our questions of whether she wanted juice or water.

She even "showed her butt" to a student nurse who was talking to her as if she were some kind of brain addled invalid. The nurse kept "baby-talking" to her and she merely stared up at the ceiling and acted like she was "not there." Then I leaned in and asked her the same question. To which she responded. And I watched as she messed with my dad who was feeding her peaches. She'd pretend to be asleep with a peach in her mouth. But when he tried to take it out, she smiled, chewed and turned away from him.

She was still there a few days later. She was, after all, one of the most stubborn Irish ladies I ever met. Which, if you'd ever met my grandmother, her mother, you'd know that was saying quite a lot. Hell, she came by it honestly, as they say.

It was decided to move her to a hospice, where they could care for her in comfort. I went back to work, in my truck; back to Florida.

So it was not surprising to get the call, but still sad. And there was just some small part of me that said she would pull through it again. After all, she'd beat cancer some fifteen years before, hadn't she? Then there was the fact that she had already beat the life expectancy of this illness by several years. She had even come out of the hospital recently after combating and beating pneumonia. So why not this.

Deep down, though, I knew it was time. More importantly, I knew that she knew it was her time.

I wanted to honor my mother. I wanted to do something I was good at, one last thing to maybe make her proud of me. I wanted to write something for her funeral service; a tribute.

I tried. And tried. But it would not come to me.

I started writing something in my head. Retelling some old favorite stories I had of my mother. Like the time we were headed to midnight mass during the Christmas of '67. The ground was covered in snow, the power and phone lines heavy with the stuff. You couldn't tell where the sidewalk ended and the street began. While crossing Rosehill Street, my mom dropped her small purse, spilling the pennies she had saved for the poor box. She started to pick each and every one of them up. We helped. Then we noticed the big truck coming down the road. He wasn't stopping. But my mom insisted on getting every one of those copper coins; she would not leave one behind. She got them all and got out of the way just as the truck passed by. And off to mass we went. Once there she made sure to put every one of those pennies in the box for the needy.

Then there was the time I had been racing down the concrete elevated train station steps and tripped. I split open my forehead and blood was everywhere. Mom started to yell at me for playing around, saw the blood and picked me up She then proceeded to carry me seventeen or so blocks to the hospital. I got two stitches over the eye for that adventure, and she was with me the whole time.

Or there was the time when I was asking her about love, true love, how you knew it was the "one" you were meant to be with. She told me for her it was when she felt so much love for dad that when they were apart, she wanted to just shrink him to a small size, put him in her pocket and keep him close always.

Those stories would show the dedication, the strength and the deep love of my mother.

But then where to go from there? These were just stories, remembrances of mom throughout my life. How would this honor her at her funeral service? Somehow, it just didn't seem "right" at a church service. It was too long and seemed self serving.

So I went to the place I often go for inspiration of the spirit. I opened my bible and paged to the familiar Psalms and Proverbs. And there it was; one of my favorite passages in the book of Proverbs. It was beautiful, inspirational and so very fitting. Though I know my trifling skills are no match for the God-inspired writing of Moses, David, Solomon and the Prophets, I decided to paraphrase this beautiful passage. I include it here:

"A wife of noble character, who can find?
She is worth far more than rubies.

Her husband had full confidence in her,
She brought him good, not harm,
All the days of her life.

She worked hard to make a home
Of warmth and joy, from meager wool and flax,
Spit and baling wire.

She set the table and nurtured her family,
Body and mind,

She was vigilant in protecting
Her husband's good name,
And her family's welfare.

She was clothed with strength
And dignity -
She laughed at the days to come.

She spoke with wisdom.

She watched over the affairs of her household
And did not eat of the bread of idleness.

Her children and her children's children
Rise and call her blessed,
Her husband also,
And he praises her.

Many women do noble things,
But she surpassed them all.

Give her the reward she has earned, oh Lord,
And welcome her into your house to rest.
Let us praise You for giving her to us for a time,
and thank her all our days."

(inspired by PROVERBS 31: 10 - 31)

I read part of this to my sister before heading back to work. And she thought it was fitting. When it came time for the funeral, my cousin Susie, mom's favorite god-daughter, read a section of the original Proverb. And this was appropriate, since the service was about my mom, not about some long winded tribute to her from me.

Still, I struggled because I wanted to do something to give tribute to my mom, and my talents at such things are limited. I am not wealthy, so cannot start a fund for people with cancer or interstitial pulmonary fibrosis. I am not famous, so cannot bring these illnesses to any greater public notice. So, what the heck could I do?

"You should write a book," my father told me one day when I was lamenting on this problem.

"Excuse me?"

"Write a book about your mom. She always had faith in you. And she kept everything you ever did, be it a story or song you wrote or a play notice that you were in. It would be perfect."

I thought about this for a little while. It was true I'd had some things published in magazines in the past, but I'd never completed any book I'd ever started. And I had started quite a few. Though I haven't published anything in over a decade, I had been writing since the seventies. Maybe I could do this. For her.

I decided, with inspiration from the tales my father and sisters told me, to write about my mom by getting those who knew her best to tell stories about her, their memories of her. After all, mom wasn't famous; she didn't invent anything or cure anything or sue for world peace. But she did more than that by inspiring others in so many ways.

So I begin. I call family and friends. For some the time is too new, mom too recently passed, and I will talk to them later. Others are more than happy to share their thoughts, providing, perhaps, an outlet for their sadness at her death.

Driving a truck for a living doesn't provide a whole lot of time to sit and write, but I do so whenever I can. The more I talk with family and friends, the more even I get to know this incredible woman. The book progresses, slowly. But it does progress, and I will complete it. Not just for her, though. It will be for all those that knew and loved her, to have as a momento. And it will be for all those who did not know her, but will get to.

And for me? Now I get to be long winded. Now I get to write a tribute to her from my heart. And I hope that, through these pages, these stories, told by those who knew her, you will all get to "meet" the incredible woman I knew as mom.

Thanks. And, thanks, mom.