The idea was to give her a send-off. One last blowout of a party. She hadn't been away from her husband since before they'd been married nearly a half century earlier. Here she was, with her youngest daughter and her daughter's best friend, celebrating together for the first and last time.
Between spa treatments and excursions with Mrs. M, I spent a lot of time on the North Carolina beach with my fly fishing rod, unsuccessfully trying to catch whatever may have been in the surf. I'd been told there were all sorts of fish trophies to be had. In the end, my enduring memory from that trip will be trying to light Mrs. M's cigarettes on the blustery veranda of our suite. I never failed, using my body to block the wind and even lighting several cigarettes between my own lips and handing them to her. When I asked my friend if it was really okay for her mother to be smoking, she replied, smiling sadly, "It doesn't matter now."
Last night after dinner with the family, I walked into the dim bedroom where Mrs. M lay. I remarked to myself how delicately papery and thin the skin on her fingers had become. This scene looked only slightly familiar to me as my own mother had been in a similar hospital bed more than ten years earlier. Mrs. M though, was listening to her dayglow green iPod with just one earbud in and when I chuckled to myself at the sight, she opened her eyes and smiled. I told her about dinner and how everyone had devoured the Chinese food I had delivered.
"Oh, they must've loved that," she said quietly.
"Oh yeah." I replied.
Silence between the dying and the living is a remarkable gift. In those moments, where we, the living, are certain that someone is slipping away, there is often the sharpest clarity.
In my moment, I said to Mrs. M, "Can I hug you?" She put her arms up slowly. I know it must have been difficult. Painful. I leaned over the hospital bed railing and wrapped my arms around her, kissed her gently on each soft papery cheek and looked her in the eye.
"Thank you for making my best friend," I whispered.
"You're welcome."
I held her hand for a long time afterward. Examined her fingers and the wedding rings that no longer fit side by side, but rather clumsily overlapped like two exhausted friends. There was nothing more to say. At least nothing I could think of.
This morning, Mrs. M passed on.
I'm not really worried about my friend and her family. They are sturdy Italian and German folk from Northeast Ohio, incapable of idleness or able to stay down for too long.
My only concern is I hope wherever Mrs. M is, someone is blocking the wind and lighting her cigarettes.
