She shows such elegance in her pink nightgown & polished nails that it seems okay to share this picture of my mom in her last days. Eyes closed, her ears are wide open to a violin solo being performed by one of her ten great grandchildren (who is playing at the foot of her bed.)

   During the months since I saw her last, my mother's body has turned from the work of living & entered the path to dying. Yet in spite of her astonishing age (105 2/3) she is so long in the habit of living that her spirit's profound energy keeps nudging her body to hang on.

   But that body that clearly wants to quit. Symbolic is the small stroke a week ago that shut her left eye blocking part of her view of an earth that she will soon depart.

   Her mortal mind has begun to forget names & places she has held dear.

   She also remembers.

   In a barely audible voice she recollects things like the sea breeze blowing through her hair on the deck of the ship her family took to Europe in 1930. And she offers her favorite memory: "Whenever the whole family sat around the table" & her sadness that everyone "always left that table too soon."  

   When I leaned down to greet her this past Friday she opened her remaining eye, gave me one of her heavenly smiles & spoke my nickname: "Oh Chip, Chip, Chip…," she said, "Hello."

   By the time I began to leave two days later we had shared some of the finest moments of my life including her reminder of what a "hellion" I was as a child: "You couldn't sit still," she smiled (& I still cannot.)

   Then, haltingly, she spoke words every son hopes to hear: "You…have…done so much…good, my Chip."

   I leaned close. We sang "Jesus Loves Me."

   Tonight I wanted to tuck in the woman who so often put me to bed & to say to her, "May your eternity be as gentle as you have always been, oh, mom, mom, Mother. Goodbye."

-Erie Chapman

photograph by erie, April 20, 2018