I had a discussion with my uncle Mitch earlier today. We spoke of my mom and how we’ve both been fairing (or not) through these difficult months without her. It’s the same days, every year, that I’m forced to deal with, however poorly: Mother’s day, June 4th (the day she died, June 26th (her birthday), Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
He said that in some ways, I had it easier than he did because I was here to watch her go. All he had was the phone calls that he made to her and, in the end, only silence when she was left unconscious by the drugs or pain.
And I do agree with him, to a point, that the distance must not have been easy for him. Undoubtably, it was not. But where he thinks my task might have been easier to bear because I was here, he is mistaken. He may not have been able to help his sister through her death, or see her before she died, but being here wasn’t any better.
Nothing about her death was cathartic or relieving. There was no joy, no closure, no peace, no singing of the angels or tolling of a bell. No reprieve or moment of revelation. There was only a young woman, dead, lying on soiled sheets in a bedroom that seemed too cold for June. They said she was smiling, but honestly, her face only looked like it was contorted in pain. She was bald, emaciated, and broken.
People romanticize death in an effort to take away its sting, or provide platitudes and bullshit by saying that my mom still loves me even in death. It’s cold comfort. Death only seeks to solidify whatever belief you already have in the almighty, or your lack thereof.
There would have been advantages in living 1200 miles away, just as my uncle does. He did not hear her scream in pain, or cry, or shudder and faulter beneath the strain of the cancer that was eating her life away. He didn’t have to carry her half lifeless body to the bathroom, or stay up with her until all hours of the night making sure she didn’t try to get up in a drug enduced haze. He wasn’t there to watch her throw up black bile from her empty stomach, or help dry pack her open wounds and hope fervently that the gauze didn’t get stuck in the wound.
If I believed in God, I would be willing to trade those three or four good moments her and I had together, in those last days, so that I may forget the thousands and thousands of bad ones. It may make me a bad son, but for better or for worse, there it is.
He is burdened with not being there. I am burdened with having been there, having little better to do than to lie to her and tell her that it will all mercifully be over soon. There was nothing merciful about her death, other than the fact that it finally came.
I know that my uncle means well, and I’m not saying he’s wrong. I don’t think he realizes how awful the entire ordeal had been and that, regardless of location, the end result was the same. The only difference is, he only remembers phone calls and silence. I remember the sound of her screams. I still wake to them from time to time, and for a moment, I feel like I’m 17 all over again.