I Have it Now

Life is cyclical.  As you age you grow more accepting of the fact that there are good years and there are bad years.  The list of bad years 2020 will join?

1974

1976

1980

1989

1994

2001

2011

2020

So, that's really not bad, given my age.  We've had a lot of good years and many more when we just sort of move along doing our thing.  The odd thing about this list of bad years?  I can tell you something really good that came of each one of these years despite the overarching pall cast upon the entire year.  That is most likely the driving force behind the human instinct to keep things moving forward.  Good does come from bad and the memories of the bad somehow fade while the good or lessons learned are almost always the things sticking with us.

What is it 2020 will bring us on the good side?  It's pretty hard to know the ultimate lessons of our generation's first pandemic, a pivotal point in race relations, and what promises to be a Presidential election for the ages.  The long-lasting positive life lessons are still in the making. 

Throughout these months of social distancing, working remotely, and allowing time for true feelings, it has surprised me that my thoughts continually revert back to a few days in 2011 - another bad year.  It was Easter Sunday on our way home from church when we received the call to say my mother had been moved to a local hospital to be treated for pneumonia.  Sitting with her that day was hard.  She repeated  "someone help me" multiple times in each minute.  I was trying but there was nothing to do.

I stopped into work quickly the next morning so I would have some work to distract me as I sat with her for the day.  Half way between the office and the hospital, about a half mile drive, I heard a voice as if someone was sitting in the seat next to me.  "Don't worry.  I have her now."  It was so clear I looked to be sure there was no one there.  Of course, I saw no one.  I still re-live that any time I drive that route, remembering the exact spot I heard it.

She slept much of the second day.  She woke later in the day and was much more like herself.  We talked until she was clearly dismissing me for the day with "I'm going now."  Where?  "Into the next room."  At the time I dismissed it as her way to send me home.  She often referred to the next room and it made sense for her to move to the next room.  What I didn't realize at the time was that this was the last time I would talk to her.  Her way of relieving herself of the demands of this world, was to graciously move herself to the next room.

Driving home that night, I drove directly into one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever experienced in my whole life.  And at that same moment, a new song came on the radio.  "Windows are Rolled Down" by Amos Lee filled my car.  It was the first time I heard the song, but it was talking directly to me.

Windows are rolled down
Sun is setting high
Windows are rolled down
I'm fixin' to die

There are many interpretations of this great song.  Everyone hears what they want to hear.  I was hearing a soulful rendition of a Danish death tradition.  When a loved one is nearing death, someone lowers the window for the soul to easily pass through once they have died.

Margaret did not wake the following day.  I left again that night for a lonely ride home - no Amos and no boost from nature.  I was very tired when I returned the next day for the vigil.  When I arrived in her room, "the sitter" was chatty and said she had a nice talk with my mother earlier.  Really?  She looked pretty much as she looked all day yesterday - asleep.  So, I asked.  "What did she say?"  The sitter went on to say she talked about all five of her children.  Okay, she had my attention.  We had a brother who died as an infant.  His picture was ever present, but if you asked my mom about her children she had four.  "What did she say about each of us?"  She nailed it.  A story that only a mother could tell.  Her hopes and dreams for each child including how so many of them had been fulfilled.  And yet, here she lay losing depth to her breaths as I watched.

Later that morning I looked up from my work and her arm was raised, reaching, about 18 inches off her bed.  Not processing what I was seeing, I rose and lowered her hand.  Why did I do that?  Why has it been so clear in the years since that she was reaching for someone, someone who had come for her?  I didn't put it all together then.  She was in the next room with the window rolled down in someone's guard to guide her home.  To guide her to the ultimate next room. She passed away within the hour.

So there it is.  The finality of human life framed by spirituality.  I didn't understand or fully process it all in real time, the bad year, 2011.  Here in 2020, I am sitting at my makeshift desk finding strength in the memories, still questioning whether I understand it all yet.  I have to trust the voice is still out there - trusting that we mustn't worry with 2020 in someone's hands and we will all be just fine. I hope I'm right.