Saying Goodbye

I wish my mom were here to help me face and deal with this time of losing her.  I walked into the Carrillon, the residential facility where she now lives, and she was about four feet from the  locked door I let myself in.  Her eyebrows went up, and she was so happy for about ten seconds.  She knew it was someone she loved, and to the degree that her expression could look familiar with a sunken face with no teeth and eyes half shut, it looked like my mom saying hello to me!  That was such a gift.  Then it was gone.  She doesn’t want to wear her teeth, so her face is sunken.  After shuffling the halls for a twenty or thirty minutes, I fed her lunch.  Her eyes stayed closed most of the time.  There were only two more moments the whole visit when it felt like she was there.  I paused with her in the hallway, pulled her close and said quietly “Mom, I love you so much.  So much.”  She said, “I love you back.”  Then I got a series of kisses, quick ones.  Then we kept walking.
And this was a good day.  Two 20-second moments of recognition in a 1.5 hour visit. A banner day.

Adam told me tonight that he only gets one kiss.  I get about eight:  kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss….quick ones.  John gets that too, on his head.  Adam said she reserves only one for in-laws.  So maybe she knows more than we think she does.  But honeslty, it feels vacuous.  It hurts so much.
This is so hard.

Back when I was photographing the New River, frequently I could only get country music on the radio.  I loved a Patty Lovelace song about saying goodbye.  The chorus went:

Mama whispered softly, Time will ease your pain
Life’s about changing, nothing ever stays the same
And she said, How can I help you to say goodbye?
It’s OK to hurt, and it’s OK to cry
Come, let me hold you and I will try
How can I help you to say goodbye?

The main help I have is the beauty of life here in Durham — the moments of our lives here at 911, which is what I created this blog to record.  When I was at the peak of shooting for the Geographic my parents were interviewed about their lives.  I’ll never forget one answer my dad gave the interviewer.  She was asking about his marriage, and she asked dad if there was anything he really wished would happen that hadn’t.  Out of the blue he said, “I wish Susie would get married and have kids.”  It was a shock.  But today, dealing with my dad being gone and losing my mom, I’m so grateful for Rosie, John and Adam.  They keep me in the game.  Dad was smarter than I knew at the time.

Want to hear the song?  Here”s the url.  I’ve been listening to it lately and Rosie begged me tonight to let her listen to it as her goodnight story….  Anyway, you’ll have to cut and paste this url because I can’t figure out how to make the link work.  But listen….it’s very to the point:

http://s0.ilike.com/play#Patty+Loveless:How+Can+I+Help+You+Say+Goodbye:66594:s307368.27682.12568408.0.1.85%2Cstd_95b4e951dfb569f98adf1ec0719fe2b2

Hard to believe this was her last birthday: