Five Months...

Five months...where has the time gone? And yet, why has it moved so slowly. It feels as if it was only the day before yesterday. Wasn't that July 8th? I was in Boulder, CO, on vacation having just finished shopping by myself at the Pearl Street Mall and walking back to the apartment where Fred was staying while working for the summer at The Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Wasn't I almost half--way there when I received the call on my cell phone, the call that one dreads getting yet the one that you know you may get at some point in your life. It was my sister Jean calling from Pennsylvania. "Where's Fred?" "Are you alone?" "Are you sitting down?" Immediately, my thought is that something horrible has happened to Dad, who just four months earlier had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. "Three to six months" the doctor has estimated. No, it couldn't be true. And yet, somehow it was....but it was wrong!!! It was Mother. She had suffered a massive stroke. The doctors at Central Montgomery Medical Center (the former North Penn Hospital) were having her medivaced to Temple University Hospital which was better equipped to handle severe cases, such as Mother's. Then, the news -- she probably will not make it through the night. The world stopped as I tried to process what this all meant. Mother? No, that can't be. It's Dad who is terminally ill. I'm preparing myself for his passing, not Mother's. The world fills with water. Nothing moves as fast as it should. I can't even run fast enough to get to the theatre's scene shop to find Fred, let alone stand still long enough to speed dial his number on my cell phone. We eventually meet halfway on campus. I tell him, although I'm sure I'm not making much sense. It doesn't make much sense to me, but it's the truth. I rush back to the apartment to book a flight on my laptop (Thank Goodness we have Internet there!) and I'm trying to figure out how I'm getting to the Denver Airport. Why is everything moving so slowly? Fred takes me to a bus depot and I catch a bus to take me to the airport. How many other people are there on this bus are rushing to their home for the same reason? I'm on the plane, a red-eye flight. God, let me get home in time! It even seems as if we are flying through water, against the current. I arrive in Philadelphia International Airport. Chip and Dad pick me up. I'm afraid to ask. Dad seems in shock -- or is it his dementia? We get to the hospital. It's a maze of unending hallways and doors. It's impossible to get to the cardiac ICU fast enough. Finally, after what seems like trudging through knee deep water, we are directed to the waiting room and met by Jean and her daughter Suzanne. Mother has passed away, perhaps two hours earlier. The reality sets in. Make it slow down now. Make Time turn back...and stop. It's the most horrible feeling -- and yet, I was to learn that it does get worse...in less than four months. Dad is devastated. The distraught that I see on Dad's and Jean's faces only worsens my own loss. I hurt more for them than I hurt for myself and wonder how can there be so-o much pain. Where is the sense in this? This was not to be. Dad was the sick one. Mother was innocent and IS the innocent. And yet, in the scheme of things, and in hindsight, perhaps this order of passing was the best and makes sense.


It took weeks of trying to process and understand what was now going to be the true tragedy in our family, the passing of both parents in a short period of time. One is never prepared or ready. It doesn't matter how long a person has lived. Nothing "justifies" death. Don't try. If I have learned anything in losing Mother so unexpectedly it is that the pain of the loss is equal to the depth of the love. What is the unbearable is a confirmation of the immense love...and the loss. (I was reminded of that again when Dad passed away.)


Five months -- what happened to the first, second, third, and fourth month "observations" since Mother passed away? It shocked me when I realized that those "anniversaries" were overlooked and I feel/felt guilty over allowing them to pass unnoticed. Intellectually, I understand that my focus was on Dad, his health, and spending as much time with him as possible, in spite of the loss of Mother. And yet, I can't help but feel that Mother has been short-changed. I loved her just as much as Dad, if maybe not more, because she was my Mother and I was her Son. But that is so unfair and untrue when I measure the pain in my heart for both of them. As her son, I always thought that I would be the one to somehow care for her and protect her from the realities of the world. That wasn't to be. I feel cheated. I feel that she was cheated. (Is this the anger that "they" say one will feel?) It's not for lack of love that the first four months passed without notice. I guess it's something to just accept and to move on. I know in my heart what I feel and that's what matters.

Mother and Dad, you both are missed so much and always will be. The incredible emptiness and pain of loss will never go away, I guess one just gets more used to it, that's all. I keep telling myself "That's Life" and "That's part of the deal." Sometimes the deal seems unfair, although it is real. I await the water to recede.