When my mom was in the hospital before she died I remember rubbing lotion on her hands. She asked me too. There was one particular corner of her thumb that was dry and cracked and rough. My mom never had dry hands. And I remember rubbing lotion on that spot on her thumb and trying to make it soft again.
She was barely there anymore. Thin beyond recognition. Exhausted. Ready to let go.
I can’t believe how much it still hurts.
It’s a memory I don’t think will ever go away. Me, the child, trying to heal my mom in such a trivial way when she was so sick from cancer.
I can’t help but think of her so often. Especially this time of year. She died on December 21, 2013. Nearly six years ago. It doesn’t get easier to miss her. I guess I just accept it a little more each year.
I’ve tried hard not to get sad when I think about her. I know she wouldn’t want me to burst into tears every time I thought of her. But it still feels very painful and very much right there at the surface of my existence. Tears well quickly and leak from the corners of my eyes. A small release of anguish here and there.
This will be the first Christmas without either of my parents. I miss them very much. They were good, loving, kind, thoughtful parents. No matter their faults my brothers and I were the center of their universe. Amazing to be loved like that and still feel like it wasn’t enough. They are gone way too soon.
I don’t have a lesson. Or a point to this post. The memory popped into my head as it often does. The small things that we remember in the most difficult times. The instinct to try to heal someone even when we know they can’t physically be healed. But maybe my mom felt healed in another, more powerful way. Something to comfort her as she moved from this life to the next. Somewhere that thumb is soft again and she feels no more pain.
