Thursday May 12, 2022 was the last time I saw my mother alive. It had been a rough week for us. Mum was struggling very hard with the fact that she had died briefly in the hospital. She couldn’t understand why there was nothing and no one there waiting for her in the afterlife. I think she felt terrified and completely abandoned. She kept asking me all sorts of hard questions for which I had no answers. She also kept asking me about the phone call from the hospital telling me, “Your mother had a hard night last night.” Hard indeed! The proof was on her chest which was the most horrifying mix of black and blue from where the nurse basically stood on her while performing CPR. What Mum didn’t realize was that every time she brought that up, my own trauma around losing her was reignited. So we were both at each other that week, traumatized, feeling alone, reaching for something we couldn’t find, and aggravating the crap out of each other in the meanwhile.
But that Thursday was soft, or at least that’s how I need to remember it. Mum finally made it back to her beloved Thursday morning Yoga class. She was standing in the upstairs hallway after class (I had the privilege of teaching beautiful souls out of my mother’s house.) wearing a blue hoodie, jeans, and her funky opalescent blue Birkenstocks. I stopped as I was coming up the basement stairs and caught sight of her in the doorway. In that moment, she looked so good. She looked calm and at peace. She looked stylish. And I said, enthusiastically, “Don’t you look sporty?!!!” She sputtered and chuckled and replied, “I’ve been called a lot of things but I don’t think ‘sporty’ has ever been one of them. But thank you.” That may have been the only time my mother ever accepted a compliment from me. It was awesome. And then we parted ways, me continuing to tidy up before I left her place to come home to mine, Mum to contemplate what to have for lunch.
When it was time for me to leave, Mum saw me to the door, as she always did. She walked carefully sideways down the stairs and crowded me in the front foyer. I grilled her about how she was feeling. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You’re not having any weird symptoms? You’re sure you’re feeling okay about being on your own? Because I can stay. You’re not lying to me, are you?” She assured me she felt perfectly fine, offering me her wrist so I could feel her strong and steady pulse. No more arrhythmia. It felt reassuring. As she leaned in to give me my kisses on the cheeks, I could feel her whiskers poking me. Then came the warning, “Watch out for the idiots on the road!” I told her I would, I promised I would try not to be one of them myself, and I walked out the door.
My family never said, “I love you.” We knew we loved each other, we would write it in cards, but we would never say it out loud. Such was the family dynamic. But when my mother left the hospital, I made a point of saying, “I love you,” whenever I left her.
Except that day. Except for Thursday May 12, 2022.
I could feel my mother’s presence at the door behind me. I could feel the words “I love you” burning in my throat. I could hear a strong inner voice saying, “Tell her you love her!” I even felt a desperate urge to turn around to rush back to the door and blurt the words, but I didn’t. I choked. I let a long, weird history get in the way.
I broke my own heart that day. I think I even cried a bit in the car on the way home. Why, I asked myself. Why did I become paralyzed? The truth is, I don’t know. If I had known, though, that I would never see my mother alive again, if I had known that the next time I walked through the door to that house I would find her dead, I would have thrown down my bags and run back to her full tilt, awkwardness be damned. I would have held on for dear life. I’m not sure I would have let go. I would have memorized her smell, the sound of her voice, even the pores on her skin.
And I absolutely would have said I LOVE YOU!!!!
So I’m here today to say this: SAY THE THING! Not the crappy things. Lord knows we say and hear too much of that. Say the soft things. Say the things that scare you to say. Say the things that make you feel vulnerable. Say:
- You are my everything.
- I’m scared of being here without you.
- I’m sorry.
- I love you.
- (Fill in the blank with your own heartsong.)
Just follow the whisper of your pure heart and say the thing.
I love you,
Tabitha
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Tabitha Kot 
Say the Thing
Posted in Commentary, Death and Dying, Healing, tagged love on May 12, 2023| 2 Comments »
Thursday May 12, 2022 was the last time I saw my mother alive. It had been a rough week for us. Mum was struggling very hard with the fact that she had died briefly in the hospital. She couldn’t understand why there was nothing and no one there waiting for her in the afterlife. I think she felt terrified and completely abandoned. She kept asking me all sorts of hard questions for which I had no answers. She also kept asking me about the phone call from the hospital telling me, “Your mother had a hard night last night.” Hard indeed! The proof was on her chest which was the most horrifying mix of black and blue from where the nurse basically stood on her while performing CPR. What Mum didn’t realize was that every time she brought that up, my own trauma around losing her was reignited. So we were both at each other that week, traumatized, feeling alone, reaching for something we couldn’t find, and aggravating the crap out of each other in the meanwhile.
But that Thursday was soft, or at least that’s how I need to remember it. Mum finally made it back to her beloved Thursday morning Yoga class. She was standing in the upstairs hallway after class (I had the privilege of teaching beautiful souls out of my mother’s house.) wearing a blue hoodie, jeans, and her funky opalescent blue Birkenstocks. I stopped as I was coming up the basement stairs and caught sight of her in the doorway. In that moment, she looked so good. She looked calm and at peace. She looked stylish. And I said, enthusiastically, “Don’t you look sporty?!!!” She sputtered and chuckled and replied, “I’ve been called a lot of things but I don’t think ‘sporty’ has ever been one of them. But thank you.” That may have been the only time my mother ever accepted a compliment from me. It was awesome. And then we parted ways, me continuing to tidy up before I left her place to come home to mine, Mum to contemplate what to have for lunch.
When it was time for me to leave, Mum saw me to the door, as she always did. She walked carefully sideways down the stairs and crowded me in the front foyer. I grilled her about how she was feeling. “Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You’re not having any weird symptoms? You’re sure you’re feeling okay about being on your own? Because I can stay. You’re not lying to me, are you?” She assured me she felt perfectly fine, offering me her wrist so I could feel her strong and steady pulse. No more arrhythmia. It felt reassuring. As she leaned in to give me my kisses on the cheeks, I could feel her whiskers poking me. Then came the warning, “Watch out for the idiots on the road!” I told her I would, I promised I would try not to be one of them myself, and I walked out the door.
My family never said, “I love you.” We knew we loved each other, we would write it in cards, but we would never say it out loud. Such was the family dynamic. But when my mother left the hospital, I made a point of saying, “I love you,” whenever I left her.
Except that day. Except for Thursday May 12, 2022.
I could feel my mother’s presence at the door behind me. I could feel the words “I love you” burning in my throat. I could hear a strong inner voice saying, “Tell her you love her!” I even felt a desperate urge to turn around to rush back to the door and blurt the words, but I didn’t. I choked. I let a long, weird history get in the way.
I broke my own heart that day. I think I even cried a bit in the car on the way home. Why, I asked myself. Why did I become paralyzed? The truth is, I don’t know. If I had known, though, that I would never see my mother alive again, if I had known that the next time I walked through the door to that house I would find her dead, I would have thrown down my bags and run back to her full tilt, awkwardness be damned. I would have held on for dear life. I’m not sure I would have let go. I would have memorized her smell, the sound of her voice, even the pores on her skin.
And I absolutely would have said I LOVE YOU!!!!
So I’m here today to say this: SAY THE THING! Not the crappy things. Lord knows we say and hear too much of that. Say the soft things. Say the things that scare you to say. Say the things that make you feel vulnerable. Say:
Just follow the whisper of your pure heart and say the thing.
I love you,
Tabitha
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