I Found Out My Mom Died Two Days Ago And I’m Okay

Yesterday. Saturday evening. Approximately 8:03pm. I was told my mother had passed two days prior.

An unexpected text came: “Hello Patti, is this still a good phone number? This is —– (younger brother).

Could you call me? Could you call me please?

Or may I call you?”

I knew. I knew before he called me. Well, I suspected events were dire, because in order for him to contact me, he had to run through the gauntlet of the blocked. In fact, my entire extended family would have to do this if they ever wanted to reach me. Our family dynamic is acrimonious, and my path to peace came, in part, through blocking, then deleting their numbers.

Such an extreme measure that most would caution against, I know. Yet, most hadn’t lived my life, walked my steps, breathed my air. I didn’t take this step without years of prayer and contemplation.

The truth is we grew up in a small town and had mutual friends, or at least friends of siblings of each other’s friends. Our lives were clumsily knit together and we wore the heavy garment whether we were comfortable or not. Many mutual friends had my cell number, so I knew when this day came, if they thought it important to tell me, they would have a way.

The years-count since I had seen any of their faces in person is over nine. Seems like forever and yesterday all at once.

Almost a decade of aging, of joys and sorrows, of deaths and new lives, of hopes of reconciliation, have passed like a creek rising into a raging torrent and then back again. The calm beauty of trickling waters that we have been accustomed to all these years is teaming with the poison of invisible pain. Jump in at your peril.

So, you can imagine my trepidation at the call that came after the text.

She had passed two days prior, I was told. Cancer throughout.

Although, not a practicing Catholic – albeit, that could have changed in the last years, because honestly, I was not privy to her comings and goings – she received Last Rites for the sick and dying. My brother said she had a peaceful and swift death, and I thought: who can ask for anything more? I was grateful to know this.

But, my mother was gone and any hope of anything to come, of a possible reconciliation, however that looked, opened into a dark void of sadness and disappointment of what could have been.

A dear friend advised at the time of her death that forgiveness in this world is a form of reconciliation this side of heaven, no matter the circumstance of the relationship. What powerful healing there is in those who love us.

While hearts soften upon hearing of death, there was no metamorphosis of the trauma she had inflicted on me as a child; trauma long since forgiven, but never excused or forgotten.

I remember when I found out I was pregnant – my stomach twisting and knotting in pain: it was instant terror.

How could I possibly be a good mother if I had never been properly mothered?

Yet, God is good in his provision and through the years sent women, momma figures, into my life. Women who advised, counseled, corrected, but most importantly, loved me as their own.

They saved me. They showed me the way.

Today, I am a devoted mother and grandmother. My fight, my joy, my encouragement, my all, is with them. Always and forever. Nothing can separate me from my love for them.

Of course this, at times, less now than in my younger years, brings me back to the fact that I have never, will never, know the embracing love of my mother.

A lifetime of familial trauma is to be ignored at your peril.

As a writer, I never wrote about this pain while she was alive, because I knew it would destroy her. She was German to the core – you do NOT discuss such things in or outside of the family. Miraculously, at least to mere skin and bones of people, THIS is how Jesus can transform your pain: he can create compassion where you swore there would be none.

When you start to deal with your trauma in the most healthy way, you look through the events and come to forgiveness, but unlikely amnesia. And because trauma is forever stored within your cells, you place those moments in a box and store on the tippy top shelf of a metaphorical closet. For years you may go with just a glance towards the closet without opening the door. Then, all at once and in a storm of destructive surprise, the closet door flies open and the box bangs to the ground, spilling its contents.

You are helpless to stop the chaos, so you start again, placing each item back into the box, but here’s the kicker: your resolve to avoid looking at the soul-crushing hardness is futile. It must be faced: it demands your laser attention, once again. So, as you pick up the pieces, the movie of your past starts automatically and you can’t run to the concession stand to escape the scary parts.

So, while I have prepared myself for years, knowing that death comes for us all, her death flung open the closet and I’m left with facing the scars, facing the pain that I can’t believe I endured and the wondering whys, as I clean up the mess of what her death actually means to me instead of what I thought it would mean to me when she remained in the land of the living.

I am not traveling to attend her funeral. I properly mourned her prior to her death and am at peace. To go now, would only serve as a sharp stick to the eye of those she deeply loved and who loved her.

My place is no longer there. It is here.

I’m thankful that I serve a mighty God, the great I AM, for without him I am nothing; I have nothing. My joy is the understanding that in the eternal there is perfect redemption. For my mother. For me. For you. For all.

Thank you, LORD, for your goodness, your mercy, your grace, and your love.

My mother died two days ago and I’m okay.

I pray she has found peace with Jesus, as I have.

Go in his grace and in the glory that is his mercy, my babies.

All is well.