Teachings From My Mother
My mother, Harriet McNeal, is 95 years old. Since April she has been living in memory care in the western suburbs of St. Louis, near my older sister. In mid-October it seemed like she might be approaching end of life. We reached out to hospice and they immediately enrolled her. I dropped everything and left my house on October 25th to drive to St.Louis to be with her. I assumed that when I came back, my mother would be gone.
That wasn’t at all what happened – those who know my mother know that “life force” could be her middle name. We had an extraordinary month together, from the first days when she was mostly in bed, and I sat by her playing her favorite music for her, holding her hand, telling her how much I love her (and hearing her say how much she loves me too), to her wondrous recovery and days upon days of being out driving, going to parks, sharing meals, having adventures.
As the fall colors went on and on, our time was filled with deep love and shared experiences of beauty and wonder, especially out in nature – and no one appreciates beauty more than my mother, and no one can smile with such unalloyed joy.
Many of her friends and family came to visit her in the early days, thinking this would be the last time to see her, and with them, too, she radiated love. By the time I left she was in fine form, maybe even better than she has been for a while.
Since I returned, I have been thinking of all that I am learning from my mother in this time of accompanying her through the days we were together. She has lost so much – things most of us fear to lose, desperately - many of her memories, her life as a teacher and researcher, macular degeneration taking her ability to read…losing her independence, her beautiful paintings, her ability to walk or to travel, the bicycle she rode all over the world - the list is very long.
And yet….every day I was with her I saw her overcome with joy, from something – my hand in hers, an opera aria, a tree blazing with red leaves against a deep blue sky, or even rolling across the threshold of the house where she lives, out into the big world she still loves so much. I swear, when her time does come, I wouldn’t be surprised if her last words are “so beautiful”.
It was an honor to be with my mother for those weeks, not an weighty obligation. Her joy in the face of all she has lost heals me and teaches me. And when she was sorrowful or confused, or in pain, I was glad I could be there with her at those moments too.
Over the years that I have been back in the Midwest with her, whatever old stories from my childhood that led to resentments or distance just….dissolved.
I am amazed by her - by her inner and outer beauty, by her resilience, by her capacity for love and appreciation, by her willingness to say “yes” to her life even as it is so far from what she would wish for, and that those of us who love her would wish for her. I know that she is severely compromised by dementia, but who she is, her qualities of heart, shine through so brightly, like the sun blazing through clouds.
Sometimes I think, for all my years of spiritual practice, this may be the deepest spiritual practice of all.
