And just like that.  One year ago today.  Nov 19, 2023.  2:37pm.  My mother died.  This is one of my favorite pictures of us together taken at my bother’s cottage.   It shows a kind of seriousness matched with a sense of serenity.   She was good at telling her family that no matter what, it would be okay.  Don’t worry.

I was with my mom, holding her hand at the end.  And right beside me was my sister Lisa, along with my brothers Bob and Dan (and his wife Elizabeth).  We were all there when she breathed her last breath.  It was a surreal moment that I still have a hard time wrapping my head around.  I actually convinced myself in the months leading up to her death, that somehow this lady would pull through like she always had and that this reality she was facing was not actually reality, but some cosmetic nightmare we would all wake up from.   In the end, she had nothing left to give.  She had given it all away – every last bit.  She had used her life in the most precious way.  To bless others.  To sacrifice.  And to show compassion with a tender heart.  Never one to judge.   She had a quiet strength.  Her mercy was massive.  And her laughter was her secret weapon.  Her wild sense of humor and quirky wit combated the struggles she faced.

When we all knew the end was near, one day I looked across to her as she lay in the hospital bed and I asked her:  “Mom, what do you want me to tell everyone?”  And I can still vividly remember her child-like actions and the courageous words that followed.  She raised her hands in the air in triumph as if she had just scored a goal or touchdown and smiled with a kind of giddiness, then proclaimed in no uncertain terms:  “Be happy for me.  I’m at peace!”

This is not exactly been a peaceful year for me.  No words can accurately describe the vast emptiness left behind when this unusually unique spirit has left the earth.   In the first few months after she was gone, I went about my days in a kind of fog.   The shock was numbing.  I didn’t feel much.  The reality – insurmountable, even though I know intellectually life is finite – we don’t live forever.   She was close to 85 years old.  Bravo!  She got cancer and was suffering.  No one wanted to see her suffer.  It’s better she goes.   She had a powerful faith.  Was not afraid to face her mortality.    She was well loved – and surrounded in love in the end.  She had a hard, but fantastic life.  What more can we ask for?

And yet the heart hurts because the missing is too much.   The grief does not get better.  It gets different because when you bury someone you love, the love doesn’t die with that person.   It’s been my experience, the exact opposite happens.   The grief grows because the love grows with it.   You make a kind of uneasy peace with that.  It’s a wicked, complicated, yet beautiful dance between love and grief.  And that’s okay.

It took me until about March, before I started writing again.  Once I finally was able to grasp what I was trying to write, a new play emerged.   I used everything I’ve experienced this past year into this script.  And I felt all along, my mom encouraging me like she always did, telling me:  “Keep writing.”  And so I did, over several months, I kept writing page after page for what I feel is the funniest piece I’ve written.  That was one of my main goals – to write something that was funny, even though the overall theme has a serious tone.   The humor in this new play is somewhat wicked, off kilter – something my mom would have appreciated.

I used to make my mom laugh whenever I kissed her on the cheek, particularly if I had a beard and mustache – like the picture below snapped a few years back.  When she died, my sister and I were the last to leave her room.   We lingered a few minutes and before I left, I leaned down and kissed her on the cheek like I did so often over the years.  I can still hear her laughing…