My mother died.
Like a wing, like a bird, she took flight.
It is best.
She, herself a bird, weightless as a feather
lifted up and flew
not even looking back.
A wisp of smoke
streaking towards the light,
pulled by ancestors and angels and
love.
I could not bear to watch her go.
I was expecting it.
When death comes,
you never know how you will be.
I thought there would be relief.
There was, though bittersweet with
memories and missing her.
Yet from a great distance I could see–
she was standing there,
laughing, relieved,
loving me, her child.
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January 22, 2014 at 1:00 pm
A powerful and emotional…such beautiful writing. Such a tribute to the love of life.
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July 26, 2013 at 11:56 am
I’m sorry for your loss. I can empathize with your feelings; when my mom died in 2003, there was relief that she was out of her failing body, and sorrow that I wouldn’t see her again in the flesh.
My husband is blessed with the ability to sometimes see people on the other side; the night my mom died I was with her & my brother, sister in law & dad in south Florida & my husband was asleep at home in Orlando. When I called him he said he had already known as he saw my mom, looking young & with brown hair (rather than the blond she’d had for many years), & smiling. xo
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July 26, 2013 at 4:03 pm
What a beautiful gift to have, and in your case with your husband, I am sure was greatly comforting and affirming, Susan. I saw my mother, too, about an hour after she died. She was standing on a precipice with my dad who passed in 1987. They were both young and healthy looking and there was a crowd of loved ones and ancestors standing behind them. They were smiling, beaming down at me, saying “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” There was so much relief and happiness and gratitude for them, I would hear from my mom for the next several days frequently. As her caregiver the last six years, she let me know there was no room for guilt at all–I am sometimes known for thinking I wasn’t doing enough or doing it well enough. She confirmed so much of what I had felt in the last couple weeks of her life–she didn’t want me to sit vigil for her death–and tried to let me know a week ahead. Family came in and pulled me out of the room in the memory care facility where she was–and I felt a lot of guilt over not being there when she passed. But she let me know that she didn’t want me there, that she knew it would have been too difficult for her to leave with my distress. She told me it was time to take care of myself now.
Thank you for sharing this with me!
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July 25, 2013 at 3:11 pm
beautiful tribute Susan!
love, Linda
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July 26, 2013 at 3:54 pm
Thank you, Linda! I know we will miss them the rest of our lives though. Guess that’s just the love coming through!
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