THIS WILL BE MY FIRST Mother’s Day on earth without a mother.
Many of you already know what that feels like. It’s a reckoning with your own mortality. For me it’s neither lonely nor sad—just an undeniable marker of the passage of time. Time spent. Time remaining. And how precious every moment is.
My mother in her final days had the great gift of saying goodbye. I flew to Milwaukee three times in one week to be with her at her home. I could feel the end was near. She’d become not only weak but weary and resigned.
At one point, as we sat in the overheated little room with the big-screen TV watching The Bold and the Beautiful, The Young and the Restless, and the game-show channel’s incessant run of Family Feud, I asked her: “Do you think you’re going to make it through this?”
She slowly shook her head.
Shortly afterward, her caregiver for the past 14 years, Nurse Judy, came into the crowded room that was made even more crowded by the never-used exercise bike and the brown leather recliner my mother had always maintained as a personal throne. Their eyes met, and my mother reached for her and started to cry. I felt they were tears of gratitude, though she never said a word. She rarely showed emotion.
この記事は The Oprah Magazine の May 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は The Oprah Magazine の May 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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