On saying good-bye

I spent the last 12 days in Victoria with my mother Arta, visiting her and helping her access needed medical care and resources as she faces advanced pancreatic cancer. One of the most difficult things about that trip was the moment of saying goodbye.  Why is it so hard to say goodbye?

I went to read Arta's 39th and 40th memories on her 80 Memories for 80 years blog were she wrote her own thoughts about saying goodbye to her parents.  You can read those here.  After reading those posts today, I thought I would respond with my own post about "cherished memories at the end of the life of my mother".  Arta said herself that "death is a list of saying good-byes."   Below you can read some of my thoughts on saying goodbye.

Favourite image of Arta from my visit with her in May.  Dressing up to visit with family on Zoom.

Of her father Arta wrote, "Good-bye to the games he taught me to play.  Good-bye to the gallons of milk he delivered to me.  Good-bye to my model of intellectual curiosity. Good-bye to the place where I could ask the deepest questions of my heart.  Good-bye to watching his quiet acts of generosity.  Good-bye to a gamer who played by gentleman’s rules.  Good-bye to his story-telling.  Good-bye to the spontaneous games I was part of.  Good-bye to the man whose role as a father moved into a deep friendship with me: friend to friend."

Of my mother I write, good-bye to my model of intellectual curiosity who at the age of 81 is still marking up her favourite articles in the New Yorker, and attending university classes. Goodbye to the woman who fed not only my body but my soul. (And I might add, she fed a lot of people - bread, cinnamon buns, pizza, chocolates, soups, hot chocolate and cinnamon toast breakfast, chinese food, banana slush, and the list goes on and on.)  Goodbye to conversations had while rolling cinnamon buns, making bread or cooking a delicious meal. Goodbye to surprise words during the word game and the ensuing laughter.  Goodbye to fabulous blog posts about anything from the most recent National Theatre live event to fun with grandchildren.  Goodbye to the woman who taught me that ordinary everyday can be a party and an adventure. Goodbye to the woman who taught me to pull out the best dishes when the children/grandchildren come over to play.  Goodbye to the woman who knows that the most important relationships are with family and who has kept a family record to help bind us together long after she is gone.  Goodbye to a woman who opens her home to strangers and then calls them friends. Goodbye to a traveller, intent on living, and breathing deeply the amazing world in which we live.  Goodbye to the teller of stories, all sorts, who gratefully has left me a trail of paper documenting her amazing life.  Goodbye to my champion, who saw my potential even when I could not.  Goodbye to a cherished mother and friend.

I echo Arta's own writing about watching her mother die.  She said that "seeing her die..pulls up feelings of deep grief.  That big ball of sorrow that is just at the bottom of my throat. A memory that is so etched into my heart that I want to give it a place."

I give this sorrow a place here ... and now pass the feather.

In our family, we hold the feather when it is our turn to speak.  When we have said what we need to say, we pass the feather to someone else to give them a chance to speak.