A Sudden Passing

I knew my mother-in-law was in declining health but her death the day before Easter was a shock. At 82 she was not young yet her death hit hard. Though we had gotten into a few spats now and again we were close. Since we didn't always get along I figured her passing would not be very traumatic. I was wrong. She lived next door to us and either me or my husband would bring her mail. We would see her every day and call at least once a day.

So I look over at her house, which is now a shell instead of home because no living, breathing human being occupies it. At her wake, she was beautiful in a purple dress and lipstick to match. Her hair was nicely coiffed and she wasn't gaunt or sickly-looking. She looked as if she were asleep. I was waiting for her to open her eyes at any minute. She died on her way to the hospital, in an ambulance. She had called my husband over to her house that morning because she was very faint and sweaty and he comforted her while I called an ambulance from my house. I couldn't go because I had to stay with the kids.

They performed CPR at the hospital but they weren't able to revive her. If she had survived she would have been bedridden for a long time and need a lot of care, and I knew she wouldn't have wanted that. She had arthritis and it was increasingly difficult for her to walk. Yet, in our conversations about death she expressed a fear of the unknown of death. She was a Catholic but admitted even with the beliefs of the church there was no way of knowing what really happens after death. She had told me a few unusual things about how she had seen the ghost of her deceased husband soon after he passed, and how a giant Jesus had held her in the palm of his hand after back surgery she had one time, a golden light circling his large head. She also had a dream a couple of months ago of her deceased mother and brother beckoning her. But still ,even with these unusual experiences, she resignedly told me, "I think the only way loved ones really live is in your memory."

Now, as I live with the vision of her lifeless body in the coffin, I hope to God that is not true. I don't want her to be dead.I want her to walk to her fig tree and pick figs and have some asparagus that just came up in the asparagus patch the day after her death. I want to see her in her favorite faux leopard coat with a scarf around her neck. I want my children to go over to her house and watch cartoons and eat cookies. I even want her to complain about something I cooked being burned(she came over to eat almost every Saturday night) but mostly she was complimentary. Both my children have special needs and she loved them unconditionally. Near the end she had said she didn't want to be in declining health, she wanted to help people, not be a burden. She liked helping her family when she could. I feel bad that she won't be shuffling to the door when I come knocking. Won't be coming to dinner on Saturday, won't be there to joke, laugh or cry with. My own mother lives far away so she was like a mother figure to me. I thought about how she might have fought it when she realized she was going to die; the permanency of it. How she would leave the earth behind, and everyone she knew with it.

I have had other people in my life die but this has been the most difficult . I can't bear to think that once someone dies that their soul does not live on, that their body dies and that's it. That all their pain, memories, and experiences could just die with them. No it couldn't be that simple. And that gives me hope.