My mother died this morning.

[mapsedge]

I'm not really ready to write about this, though I want to just for the catharsis of it, because I need to get the facts down before my foggy synapses lose the memories. The quick facts, then, and to bed. After a day spent toolin' all over south-Eastern Nebraska, I'm pooped. No, more than pooped. Fucked-up-exhausted.

My mother died this morning at 12:43. I, my wife mljm, and my sister Kathy were with her when she went. I have never been present at the moment another person dies, and it was a profound experience that has changed something in me that I cannot yet articulate or indeed even identify.

The funeral is Friday, but I don't feel a need for it. I have all the closure I could possibly want: I stroked her hair as the nerve endings in her neck and left shoulder fired off their last remaining energy; as the blood, lacking any pressure to keep it moving, drained from her face; as my mother went from living human to empty vessel, used up and drained at last of its animus.

Ceremony? It'll be for everyone else: I saw the lady off on her trip.

This was right; proper. A perfectly correct thing to happen. There is nothing left undone, the wheel has completed its turning. Rejoice with me, friends.

Martha Jane is home now, and God bless it.

Comments

Catching up...

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

Ah, my dear friend! I DO understand and have been there myself. I was the one to give my mother permission to go even though I was not there when she left. It is an awesome and amazing thing to experience; life changing indeed and in fact.

I rejoice with you at the same time as my heart aches for you.

And now I think I'll have to journal that bit while it's on my mind; not what I was intending but it needs doing.

I'll be thinking about you...