My Mom Said 7 Cryptic Words To Me On Her Deathbed. Here’s What I Finally Realized Later.

***

Thirty-nine years ago, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She immediately tried to quit smoking. She was 68, and I was 32.

Six weeks after her diagnosis, my mother was in the hospital in Vermont, sick with sepsis.

The doctor told her they could prolong her life for another few weeks, possibly a month. 

When the doctor left, my mother grabbed my arm and pulled me close. “I’m done. Make this dying happen.”

I remember this command as a hiss.

***

I’m eventually moved from the ER to the stroke unit, and the hospital kicks my sons out. I lie alone and awake, watching the window, waiting for morning. When the sky finally lightens, I sit up and grin. I made it through the night.

Doctors appear at my bed. The shaggy-haired resident and the dark-ponytailed intern tell me I’ve had an ischemic stroke. They look solemn. They ask for my name, the month and the date. I rattle off the answers.

“Good, good,” the doctors say, seemingly impressed.

I point to the calendar on the wall behind them.

We laugh at how I cheated, and then I proceed to fail the rest of their tests. They ask me to repeat phrases like “it is sunny now, but earlier, in Boston, it was cloudy.” But I can only remember “it was cloudy.” I can’t remember the “sunny” part. I ask them to repeat it. Again, I can’t remember.

“Will I get better?” I ask.

“You’ll improve, but you’ll never be the same,” says Dr. Shaggy-Hair. Already, I can’t remember his name.

“What do I do?”

“We’ll run tests … ”

I stop listening and let him rumble on.

At 70, it isn’t like my other ages have disappeared. No, I’ve simply expanded to include them all: The little girl proud of the fancy red bow in her hair lives within the anxious fifth grader practicing for the spelling test and the sulky bob-haired teen. In this hospital room, I am the dejected 5-year-old holding back tears.

***

My mother told the doctor that she was ready to die. “Give me the pill.”

“There is no pill,” he said, “but we can give you a high dose of morphine that will keep you comfortable.”

Individually, my mother brought my brothers and me into her room to say goodbye.

I pulled my chair close to the bed and held her hand.

“I know I wasn’t the best mother,” she told me.

I immediately took my hand away from hers, reaching to give her water. What could I say to that?

Should I have nodded and said that I agreed? Should I have protested and told her she was the best? Her statement required an entire conversation, many conversations, and we were out of time.

I held her hand again and told her I loved her. That much was true.

“Get the doctor,” she replied. “Tell him I’m ready for the morphine.”

***

I slip off the hospital bed and wince at the bright sun.

Years ago, I remember when my brother John was dying of AIDS and it took him a long time to form words. He was 42 years old. Sitting with him on the deck, enjoying the warm sun on our skin, I insisted he must talk to his kids. 

“You should tell them you’re dying — give them a chance to have their feelings.”

He didn’t speak. He simply shook his head no.

As a psychotherapist, I’ve spent my career helping people sort through shame and guilt. Undoubtedly, the most challenging parts of parenting are the unintentional wounds. 

For decades, I wondered what my mother meant when she told me those last seven cryptic words — “I know I wasn’t the best mother.”

I don’t want to leave my children burdened with all the unspoken conversations, but my stroke wiped out my speech. I worry I’ve run out of time.

Maybe it isn’t too late. I could write individual letters to my sons, to everyone: my grandchildren, my friends, my daughters-in-law, my niece and my nephews. That would be good.

I sink against the pillow. But if I wrote a letter to each one, I’d be dead before finishing the job. It will take a book. I just need to say goodbye. I sit up to plan what I’ll say.

Dear all,

When you get this, I will be gone. I want you all to know how much I love you.

No, that is stupid. If they don’t already know that, then indeed, I have failed.

What do I want to say?

“Be careful crossing the street”?

“Life is very short; find joy”?

“Don’t sweat the small stuff”?

Do I really want to leave them with cliches? 

I slip off the bed again and pace the room.

If I could, I would stay forever. I would listen, encourage and console. I would shade you like an oak tree on sweltering summer days. I would protect you like the fir tree against cold winds. I would offer blooms of spring to celebrate your dreams accomplished. I would burst with the colors of autumn to remind you that even as dark days come, so does hope.

God, this is getting worse by the second. I climb back into the bed.

***

When my mother died, I was numb for weeks with the pain of her death. And numb for months with the pain of her life. And numb for years with the pain of our relationship. I wore her clothes. I put her photo on our picture board. I kept her colored glass bottles and garden clippers.

***

Five months after my stroke, the daffodils have bloomed. I’ve mostly recovered. I can write and speak without issue. I occasionally fumble a word, but it is hard to know if it’s because of the stroke or just my aging brain.

Darwin, Forest and Luca, my grandsons, visit often, playing games (we’re learning Spit) and reading stories. Cynthia, my daughter-in-law, comes to talk daily. Since the stroke, I frequently talk about having The Conversation, but I never start it. I have time, I tell myself. After all, I could last another 15 years. I’ve settled into denial.

Last week, as we pushed his kids on the playground swings, Josh asked: “Mom, what is this conversation you keep talking about? What’s this big secret you want to tell us before you die?”

I laughed. It never occurred to me that my sons wondered what deep secrets I held.

My secrets are all mundane. But I also recognize that I tell each of my sons different stories. I don’t mean different versions, although I’m sure that’s true as well. One son hears about my car breaking down and my adventure with the tow truck driver. Another son hears what a friend at work told me about our boss, and another hears about the amaryllis blooming. There is no reason for this. It is only what is on my mind at each moment. But the stories I’ve told create views of me — and my children all will have different ones.

I pushed 2-year-old Hazel as she yelled: “Higher! Higher!” The March day was unseasonably warm and sunny, and little kids and parents filled the park. Four-year-old Oakley concentrated on pumping on the next swing.

I understand now why my brother did not want a final conversation. How impossible that is. I also don’t want a final goodbye. There’s always more to the story.