The Definite Article

An entry in which my mother says her last words and we thank more people.

My family and I were just having lunch.

The lads in Alexandria sent us sourdough bread, summer sausage and cheddar cheese - hearty fare - and my Aunt Barbara brought us a salad. Janet Lyon stopped by with a cherry pie.

The world is still full of angels.

I've been continuously amazed at how good the people of the world are. If you read the news, you'd have no idea, but if you just live in it without reading the news, it's full to the brim of angels. Sometimes my heart feels as though it will burst from the love, it's so full, filled up by the love of so many people.

After lunch, we talked about last words and near last words my mother said. We think that her real, honest to God, very last words were "Why am I taking so long to die?" In another example of my mother's supreme, sarcastic irony, she passed away five minutes later.

However, she said a last thing to each of us, as well, some of them sad, some of them funny.

To me, her last words were: "You make me laugh, even more than that joke about the naked old people!" (I had just brushed her teeth, and was cleaning her face. I licked one of my thumbs and rubbed it on a pretend smudge on her cheek, just like she used to do to me when I was four. We both laughed.)

To Mara, her last words were: "What was that?!?" ("That" was Liam, her only grandchild, nine months old, who had just made a sound like a jet engine smashing into an air raid siren during a thunderstorm. At a Metallica concert. That boy is loud.)

To Rachael, she said: "Why am I dying?" And, oh, how it hurt to hear. For some things, there are no good answers. Rae and I held each other in the kitchen and...and we cried, but it wasn't just crying, or even sobbing, it was deeper grief than I had imagined a person could feel, come to life in our bodies, moving up from the soles of our feet. Everything hurt. There was no solace but time.

To Mendon, she said: "I will, if you'll stop talking and let me!"

I don't know what she said to my father. The two of them spoke in private.