Four, Quatro, 4

The number four is a significant number. Right now it is my son’s favorite number. He loves it when we check out at the 4th register, confiscates any of my receipts with the number four on it, and counts in multiples of fours. He is, after all, four.

But it also has significance to me. Four years ago, my mom died. At this time four years ago, I was back to work after a long holiday break in Lakeside helping to take care of her. I was training a brand new employee, jumping every time the phone rang – fearing that it was my summons to return to Lakeside to her bedside. I think the phone call came on a Tuesday or Wednesday and it was not what I wanted to hear. She wasn’t going to make it through the week. I had to come back immediately. And I did. Z was only 7 months old. We have pictures of them together but he doesn’t remember her and often asks me to show him her picture again. Especially the ones of her holding him. But even that is a bit hard for me because the mom in those pictures is not the mom of my memories. She was 50 or 60 or 70 pounds lighter than the way I always picture her. She was frail and tired. And even though I couldn’t see it then with her in front of my face, her eyes in the pictures show pain.

Even though I was called home in the middle of the week, Mom didn’t pass until Saturday. We took turns sitting by her bed, warding off Dad’s multiple suggestions at yet another testimony meeting, greeting mourners, and even sneaking off. I remember the exhaustion that possessed me down to my bones. I remember feeling so exhausted and wishing that if God was going to take her, he would just do it and end the hurt already.

I snuck off for a breather. Went to Wal-Mart of all places. And I walked back in as she literally took her last breath. I tell myself that she waited for me to take that breath. That she waited so that all her kids were there and then she could die in peace. I don’t know if it’s true but it makes me feel better. It’s amazing how when you watch someone struggle for every breath you can wish that the air would stop and the pain end but as soon as that last breath is taken, you decide the pain was worth it and you’d give anything to see her chest rise again.

Even in the funeral home I kept waiting for someone to wake me. At the viewing, it was like a big party, a reunion. So many people. But I only remember it as a blur of images, of hair, of colors, of flowers – but not individual faces or people or thoughts. As the evening wore on and were getting close to going home, I stood over her in her casket and stared. Willing her to breathe again. To prove that she was the master of all pranks and she had pulled the ultimate fast one over us. I examined her hair, her face, her nose, her lips, her hands. Who was this woman who had given me life? How could she lie so still? How could she leave me to face everything else without a mother?

I know that it may sound extreme for me to say it. I don’t think you can understand that feeling until you have lost your mother. I’ve talked to lots of people who lost their moms at different ages and stages in their lives. It seems to be hard and life changing no matter what.

This is what my mom missed in my life:

My son turned one a few months after she died. My ex went suicidal. I filed for divorce. My ex was convicted of domestic violence against me and my son. I went through lengthy legal battles. My divorce was finalized. I was promoted at work. I moved to a different apartment. I dated several guys. I moved to Gilbert and moved in with my aunt and uncle. I faced more legal battles. I got a new, more promising job. I left behind my friends and everything familiar. I bought a house and moved into it. I took the GMAT. I learned to lobby and visited with my congressmen and their aides. My son went to nursery and became a Sunbeam and then a CTR5. My son turned two, three, and four. My son started preschool. He learned to walk, talk, scream, yell, whisper, sing.

It hurts very much that my son’s grandma is gone. I wish I could fill that hole for him. I wish I could fill that hole for me.

I have been told at times that because I am sad at the loss of my mom that I don’t believe in the plan of salvation. Well I honestly don’t know what I believe but I do know that no matter what your vision of the afterlife is, sometimes it just hurts to have that hole now. Someone once told me sadness is what you feel when things don’t turn out how you expected.

I can relate to that. I know that kind of sadness. A longing for what could have been. What in my mind should have been.

Sometimes I complain about my mom and the way she was in life. I complain that she didn’t love me enough or treat me right or put me first like I wanted. I know that sometimes I don’t give her due credit. But regardless of what our relationship was, I feel pain and sorrow that I never fully got the lifetime to work it out, to come to understandings, to forgive, to hold, to love, and to grow with her.

My mom is gone. It hurt. I want to find something to fill that hole but I think no matter what, it will be there. As much as I love other role models and reach out to people around me, I want my mom. I want mine, my one and only, her. The one that has to love me no matter what because she is my mom. The one that I would always have a claim on, who would talk to me when I need a friend, who would help me when I need strength. Who I could ask without wondering if I had overstepped my welcome or fear being turned away.

About a year after she died, I had a thought that lingers still. I thought that someday we’d meet up again and we’d pack a picnic. Just the two of us. We’d take it out and find a tree with a branch that hangs over to give us shade, pull out a blanket and sit and chat for a hundred and four years. She would explain to me all the things I wanted to know about her but never asked. I’d tell her what she’d missed since she left and by the time we were through, we’d know everything about each other. We’d make up for lost time and misunderstandings and it would all be ok. I would have a mom. Finally. Forever.