Originally posted in 2011 on my recently recovered blog from the web archives site.
When I was a very young woman and started working, I would occasionally learn that a co-worker’s mother or father has passed away. One day, it was my boss on the phone when I heard him calmly say, “I’m on my way.”.
When the bereaved would come back to work, I, of course, would stop by and give my condolence in person. I was always mystified about the lack of emotion behind their responses and how matter of factly they would tell me whatever it was (“She was ill a long time” or “It was a shock to all of us”).
In my immaturity, I came to the conclusion that “real adults” (I didn’t consider myself to be one in my late teens when I started working) somehow had the ability to accept the cycle of life and death and weren’t affected by death in the way that I believed I would be should one of my parents die. They were mature people who calmly discussed a parent’s demise with no more emotion than they had the week before when we discussed the weather.
I was so sorry for their loss and shook my head wondering how they maintained a semblance of calmness about the whole thing.
Years later, I would occasionally remember the idea I had that mature people didn’t grieve and laugh at the ridiculous assumption I’d made. Now, I know.
I won’t discuss our losing Daddy the way we did in 1993. That was such a long, hard road back after he committed suicide in 1993, that may never be discussed (at least by me).
But we lost Mother on May 2 this year. I had taken her to her doctor at Piedmont that morning, gone and had a very nice lunch, and returned home. I tried to get her to come in and stay a while, but she insisted that she had tomato plants Uncle Harold had given her, and she needed to go home.
It must have happened within 15 minutes of her leaving to do her gardening because it wasn’t long before my sister called and as calmly as she could told me that Mother had been in an accident, and she was leaving work at Piedmont now. She suggested that I get to the hospital and be there in 15 minutes to be with her. Debbie said she’d be there as soon as she could.
From the moment I heard those words, I became so hysterical that I just started running. I ran downstairs to tell Russ to take me to the hospital, but I couldn’t breathe… I know I spoke but I don’t know how. I ran out the door to the car and had the feeling that if I could just keep running and running that I could outrun this horrible, sickening feeling that I had in the pit of my stomach and was already breaking my heart into pieces.
I felt everything just slipping away from me; I had nothing to hold on to. I couldn’t feel the seat of the car or the arm rest. I felt air swooshing by me as though I were falling and couldn’t stop.
That’s the only way I know to describe that feeling of total helplessness when something terrible has happened. Nothing to stop the runaway fear and pain.
I calmed myself down remembering that I had told Debbie I would call my brother.
David was at work, and I couldn’t bear it to break that news to him. I’ll never, ever for as long as I live forget seeing David when he arrived at Mother’s after having heard that Daddy was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
It destroyed me to see how broken he was. I can’t bear to think of it; even now, it hurts so much to know how totally devastated our whole family was whe
But, since I didn’t know for sure how bad the news was, I got myself calmed down enough to call his cell and tell him to meet us at Douglas General. He sounded fairly calm and just said, “Oh, man! Ok, I’m on my way.”
