Thoughts of spring... and of Mom

A robin bumped against my bedroom window this morning. It happens every year around this time. The bird must hate hitting a cold hard surface as it forages for food, but I like knowing it’s out there. It reminds me of the coming of spring, and of Mother.

I think of Mom often at this time of year, for it is when she died. She’s been gone eight years today, Feb. 24, but the events surrounding her death remain crystal clear.

 It was 2008, and I was at work when my sister Nancy called to tell me that Mom wasn’t doing well. Congestive heart failure. I didn’t know exactly what that meant then, but I knew from her voice it was serious. Mom had been in a nursing home for five years, so it wasn’t a shock to hear she had a serious health problem. But it still hit hard. Aren’t mothers suppose to live forever?

 At the hospital the next day, Mom had a brief period of awareness. My brother Fred, his wife Julie, and I were standing by her bed. And once, when I moved from her line of sight, she called my name. “Linda.” She said it three times, weak and distant. “Linda.” That was the last distinct, physical connection I had with her.

Mom lingered another twelve days, and as her death seemed more certain, some of us stayed through the night. On her last night, a Saturday, Fred, Julie, Nancy, and I were there. We took turns sleeping in a chair or on a small mattress I’d brought to the nursing home. But one of us was always by her side. 

Very early Sunday morning, Fred woke to be with Mom so Nancy and I could sleep. The three of us stood together in the middle of the room talking quietly, a short distance from where she lay. When Fred moved towards her, though, I touched his arm to slow his progress. “Wait a moment,” I said.

Did I want to tell Fred something, or was I remembering what Mother had told me when she and her siblings were with their mother when she was dying—that when my aunt left the room briefly to use the bathroom, Grandma died.

As Fred, Nancy, and I stood together in her darkened room, Mother let go. When we looked again, she was gone.

 Mom’s dying moments are crystallized in my mind’s eye by the beauty of that early morning. Looking through the nursing home window, past two empty bird feeders that stood like sentries outside her room, I saw the frost-covered earth and ice-laced branches sparkling in the first light. It was a surreal moment. Cold and barren yet breathtakingly beautiful.

Returning to Pennsylvania following the funeral, I remember seeing a large flock of robins in a field near our home. I’ve always thought of robins in the singular, like the ones Mom pointed out to us kids when we were young. “Come look,” she’d say, “See. The first robin of spring.” And there would be a lone robin hopping across the brown grass or tugging at a worm in our back yard.

Mother liked robins, especially in early spring. But seeing those robins in the field, hundreds of them, I felt the full force of my loss. But feeling this, I also understood that she was with me in many of the things we shared. Our appearance and mannerisms. Our love of literature and writing. In the way we lived our lives and managed our homes. And in the joy of seeing a robin in spring.

—Linda

Nancy (right) and I in a lighter moment at the cemetery