It was a cold and blustery Saturday in November as I stood on the rolling grasses of the hill. The cold breeze stirred my hair as I looked down at my feet. A single rose, deep red, was clenched in my hand. I brought the flower to my lips and kissed it before setting it on the marble marker in the ground. It read: Lillian MacDonald, beloved wife and mother.
The deep scars in the grass over her grave were still healing. In a few days, I'd be placing my father by her side. I'd just come from the hospital after they'd pronounced my father dead. Finally they were at peace. Finally, they were together again. Even though my father followed my mother to the other side just a few months behind her, they hadn't been together for years. My father had had Alzheimer's and he'd disappeared into his past long before my mother had finally succumbed to the cancer that riddled her body. As I started to turn, my mind asked the question silently. Were they at peace?
Yes
.
The voice, so loud in the still morning, came from nowhere and made me pause. My heart rate skittered into panic mode. I stared over the field of headstones, searching for the source of that voice. When I saw no one, I shook my head. There was nobody there.
As I sat in my car, voices from my past echoed in my mind. My father's gruff voice filled my memory.
"You'll go to college, Michael. That's final."
I had looked at my father and shook my head. "How can I?" He'd been fifty-five when I was born. I came so late into their lives. Now at seventy-two, he was stooped and angry. I loved the man more than I could say, but I couldn't leave them.
"We saved for your education. We wanted you—"
I held up my hand. "I wasn't worried about the money, Dad." I put my arm around his shoulder. "But I can't leave you either."
Mom came into the room, weak and ethereal, almost gaunt. Her eyes were pinched with pain. "Michael! We'll be fine. You must go to school."
I hung my head at her words. At sixty-five, my mother stood gently, as if every move hurt her. I knew it must. She'd just had surgery. I came into their lives so late, a menopausal accident. While most of my friends worried about what they'd do over their summer break, I spent my time at the hospital. The cancer, although caught early, was persistent. She'd be fine. She had to be.
I felt powerless as I watched them. While in the hospital, my father had become agitated and confused while waiting for my mother to come through surgery. So agitated, that a doctor had looked him over. Then he'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I shook my head. I knew they had dreams for me, but how could I leave them? What could I do?
"How about a compromise? I can go to the local college and live here."
I know my mother would have been appalled had she realized how much her face showed her relief. In the end, it was the only decision I could make.
As my memories faded, I wiped the tears from my cheeks. Would they never stop? I'd been crying for months it seemed. None of it mattered now. It was over. They were at peace and no longer hurting. I put my car into gear and drove home.
After I laid my father to rest, I sat in the house I grew up in and stared out over the yard. The well-wishers had finally left. Old friends of my parents who cupped my cheek and shared old stories I'd heard many, many times over. "Your dad was damn proud of you, boy." "Fought in the big one and saved my life." "He's far happier now, son. Don't doubt it." In the end, all they had been were faces. Faces I'd grown up with, now much older. I turned from the window and started again on the box in their bedroom.
I sighed as I put the last of my parent's clothes into large garbage sacks, bound for the Goodwill. At least work had been decent. My boss had come into the small, cramped office and gruffly put his hand on my shoulder. "Take some time off, kid. Your old man was a good worker for this company." His voice had been gravelly and he'd shrugged uncomfortably when I'd thanked him. They all knew what I went through for my parents.
After school, I'd had to get a job to help out with the bills. I never got a chance to go beyond the community college. My father had been furious when I took a job as the bookkeeper at his old company. "Damn it, Michael! I don't want you to throw your life away."
I had stood up to my father, and stared him down. "What choice is there? Mom isn't getting better." I quieted my anger and put my hand on my father's shoulder. "You're starting to forget more and more."
Dad's eyes were stricken when he looked at me, the fight draining from him. "I know, son. I know." His eyes had grown moist. "I forget you're not the same boy I bounced on my knee."
I held my father as the tears began. Most days, he couldn't remember why his wife was in the hospital. In my heart I knew that a day would soon come when he'd forget everything about me. "It's okay, dad. The job isn't that bad. And I'll be home at night, when mom gets home."
And that's what I did. I got up early and fed my father. I waited for the next-door neighbor to stop by, and then left for work. I put in ten hours a day, and then came home and cooked and cleaned. Mom never really got better and dad slipped further and further into the past with each day.
I picked up one of the many photo albums in their bedroom and thumbed through the pages. My mother had spent hours creating each one for my father. As his mind deteriorated, he would have these books in a blind, futile hope that it would spark something inside him. There were happy photos of a young version of my father in an army uniform, a beautiful young woman in a flowered dress, the same two in wedding finery, dad smiling with his hard hat on at the oil refinery. Mom dressed in her best dress for their anniversary. Laughter. Tears. Memories. In the end, they had done nothing to ease my father.
I had sat by her bed, holding her hand in the hospital. It was nearly over. Her body was consumed with the cancer, her mind the only fully working part of her. The machines by the bed droned by her as she took each ragged breath. "Promise me, Michael. Promise me you'll find a good home for him."
I held her hand and willed my own tears away. "I can't put him in a home, mom."
She touched my face with her weathered hand, tears of extreme pain glistened in her eyes. "You're twenty-five, Michael. It's time you got to live your own life."
I bowed my head over her hand and pressed a kiss into her knuckles. "It doesn't matter, mom. Don't ask this of me."
Her other hand came and rested on my head, patting my hair. "My poor baby. So lost. So alone." I looked up at her words. Her face creased in a faint smile, a shadow of the warm glow that had beamed only for me from the time I could first remember. "Don't shut yourself away, Michael. Find a nice boy and settle down. You deserve happiness."
Her words stole my breath. How could she know? I never spoke the words aloud. "But…"
"How could I know?" When I nodded, she continued, her voice faint. "I've always known. Don't be sad. It's okay. I love you as you are. I always will."
The tears slowly fell down my cheeks as I kissed her hand again. She'd given me such a rare gift. Acceptance. "I love you, mom."
"I love you too, baby." She lay back against the bed, her eyes tired as her face relaxed. "If I could, I'd make sure you were happy."
The tears lodged in my throat, making my words hoarse. "Oh, mom. Don't. I'll be fine."
Her face creased in another smile as she stared at the ceiling. "I don't know where I'm going, but I believe. It will be over soon, love. Learn from us, Michael. Don't let your life get away from you."
Those were her last words to me. The last words she ever uttered. I sat by her side until the beeping monitors beside me stopped and her body lost its rigid look. The pain left her and she relaxed into peace. It should have been horrible. It should have been scary. It was neither. It was almost beautiful, to watch her melt into eternity.
