Holding On

It’s that time of year.   The brilliant colors of autumn.  Circus-bright leaves, clinging, letting go.  Peak season slowly approaches.  Mountains beckon travelers.   

October is a good time to visit our son in Ashville.  Our trip is planned and bags are packed when the phone call comes.  Right in the middle of dinner.   I’m tempted to let the machine get it, but this time something deep down nudges me away from the table and from our meal and to the phone.  “Hello…”       

It’s a strange and urgent voice, summoning me to the Goldsboro emergency room. My mother has suffered a massive stroke and most likely won’t last the night.  I’d better hurry if I want to see her alive again.

But like those tenacious autumn leaves clinging to their familiar branches, she hangs around for half a moon cycle, waiting…   

   

Holding On

The nurses in the Hospice home swear

their dying patients see clear visions

toward the end: green meadows

and rolling hills, a stairway extending

skyward, a man with a beard resembling

Abe Lincoln, seated in a chair

at the very top.

Like my father before her, Mother

now lies at death’s door.  Earlier,

with the family here, an overhead TV

played nonstop, and I imagined her waking

from the coma long enough to watch

The Guiding Light once again.

But now they’ve all gone and the two of us

remain, alone.  Does she realize it’s me

by her side, her only girl, the one

who kept her up so much at night,

demanding to be held, forever crying, clinging,

restless for her touch?  And when the school

bus took off with me that first morning, I wept

all day, sucked my thumb and pretended

I was back in her womb to stay.

The room is silent now except for her shallow

breathing, and that one lonely bird outside

her window, singing in the dark.

Does she know it’s me, her child

with the wild imagination, now at a loss

for words, except to say, “Not to worry,

Mother, I’m here, and together we’ll make it

to the top of these stairs.  I’ll hold on until

God shows up to take your hand.”

And when at last he does, I know the final

ache of letting go.

“Holding On” was first published in Windhover

   University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Press