My artistic genius Mom (with great hair) passed away on Tuesday morning.
I wish I had something extremely eloquent and moving to say.
I don’t.
My Mom died. I’m sad. Period.
Yes, I’m glad she is out of pain.
Yes, I’m sure she is in a “better place”.
Yes, I know she is deliriously happy and probably already busy redecorating wherever she is.
AND
None of that changes the fact that I don’t want her to be dead.
I WANT MY MOM, DAMMIT.
She was funny and bright and a pain in the ass and had no common sense at all and was magnificently bi-polar with almost no boundaries and she loved baby feet and grapes and should’ve been a majority owner in Coca-Cola and had what turned out to be a fatal attraction to gauze clothing and a beautiful smile and she loved road trips and lilacs and her nails were always perfectly manicured and she never left the house without lipstick.
She was also psychic, probably.
She “doodled” the picture above in her journal last Fall — right around the time we first asked her oncologist (“Dr. Death”) about some of the memory and balance problems she was having and asked him to check it out. He ordered a CT scan and told us it was clear. Four months later when she started having seizures and had a big ole brain tumor and several smaller brain tumor “seeds”, they told us (“they” being the neurosurgeon and the new oncologist “Dr. Death, Probably”) that the best way to detect anything in the brain is with an MRI, not a CT scan. Anyway….. she had brain surgery and then a procedure called Gamma Knife, which seemed remarkably similar to what she had drawn several months earlier, i.e., light flowing into her brain.
I’m too tired and sad to write much more today. I’m still in Tampa and I’m so grateful that our family was able to be here with Mom in her final days. Austin is still here with me, because he is the sweetest of sweet peas and because we had a snafu getting his college textbooks sent so he could study for finals. The books should be here today and then he has to write a paper and turn it in and then he leaves Saturday morning to return to Denver.
Thanks for all the support and love from my “virtual” friends and family. I can’t tell you how much you guys mean to me. Hopefully I will be more coherent and have something more meaningful to say the next time I write. Or not. Whatever.
xoxo
kim
avoiding my Brilliant Writing Career 
Reads like the perfect piece to me. It reminds me of a lecture I heard put out by Zen Hospice in San Francisco talking about a woman who was heading a huge project to save the redwoods. Her father, whom she was extremely close to, died the night before she had to deliver a crucial presentation- one she’d been passionately preparing for for months. She said she woke up that morning to a call from a coworker asking an important last-minute question about the room set-up. Her response was, “My dad just died…there ARE no trees.” I wish you peace in the midst of your inevitable pain.
Yes. You’re right. All the platitudes can’t change that She’s gone. We’re sad.
Love you.
Sad, indeed.
Thank you for sharing this spectacular art,
And for all this time, your Mom,
And your own self.
Yes. Hear, hear. What Sue said. From me too Kim. Cxx
Wherever she is now, I am sure she is giving thanks for having her wonderful daughter with her all these months. Sending love your way.
So sorry, Kim. Thank you for sharing so much of your heart (and Mom) with us. Cry as much as you need to. We’re listening.
Love from Orlando…
Not to worry if your Brilliant Writing Career takes a back seat to grieving. Mourning mom is the right (and only thing) you can do. We love you Kim. Sending lots of hugs.
Dear Kim, Thank you for the very real self and Life and love you so generously share with us through your words. Please permit me to share a poem that has been a great solace to me in times of sorrow and grief. You WILL know joy again. With gratitude for you, Aysha.
Then a woman said, “Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.”
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Kahlil Gibran, “On Joy and Sorrow”
I was so afraid after your last post that this might be the next post. I hoped and prayed for a miracle for you. Be good to yourself.
Kim, this is so moving and so sad. Yes — you don’t want her to be dead, you want your Mom alive and with you.
You put so much of yourself, your love, your time and energy, into caring for her and now she’s gone and …
If love could have saved her, if love could have restored her …
It’s just hard.
I’m so sorry. Sending support and love and prayers.
((Hugs))
Meg x o
I am so sorry – I hadn’t checked your blog in a while and just now saw this. Cancer does suck. I’m sure no words can give you the comfort you want, esp. words from a stranger who reads your blog from time to time, but I send you the utmost condolences that I can. Peace to you.
I lost my mom the same day (12/8/11). She lost her battle with cancer but it was a fall down a staircase that ultimately did her in. As I visited with her 5 days before she passed, she told me it was not her time yet (although she did not understand why not) as she lay in ICU with a neckbrace that looked awfully uncomfortable. I am of strong catholic faith as was my mom and it was no coincidence that died on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception. My mom left a note that she had written 25 years ago and was to be opened upon her death. In it, she professed her love for her children and God and said that she would watch over us and asked that we would pray and think of her often.