6. A Mist in the Blue

We spread mom’s ashes in the meadows of Maroon Bells in Colorado.

By the time Mom was in hospice care, Dad was in a nursing home, intermittently cursing the staff and bemoaning his current situation. We brought him to Mom’s bedside, two days before she would succumb to the gentle grasp of the morphine which was quietly leading her away from her family. During his few minutes of goodbye, Dad was fully lucid, whispering that God was within her and he would meet her in Heaven where together they would live a thousand years. If she had been even slightly conscious, I think she might have shuddered at that thousand-year deal, but by then, perhaps, she was already in the grasp of tender forgiveness.

They had not parted on the best of terms. Mom, bedridden and crippled, called me at 6:00 on the morning of July 26, “Bonnie, your father and I are in trouble.” My husband, Daulton, and I arrived to find Dad clad only in his underwear sitting in Mom’s motorized wheelchair. He exclaimed he was watching white birds climbing the walls and cats sauntering over his feet. I called 911 emergency on behalf of Mom and three hours later would do the same for Dad. The emergency dispatcher said the Words to Live By: “You’ve had quite the day. We’re coming to help you.”  I was deeply saddened by the situation in which my parents found themselves. It hadn’t happened overnight. July 26 was a culmination of years of mutual neglect, misunderstanding, and my father’s adamant refusal for assistance. July 26th, a calendar day of my memory, would mark the last either would see their home.

Once both had been admitted to the hospital, Mom told me she never wanted to see dad again. After 69 years, my mother had finally left my father. Thus, Mom, at 94, and Dad, at 98, spent their final life transitions on different floors of the hospital. The hospital elevator became my daily transport to – and brief respite from these powerful and suffering influencers of my past and future. Mom would ask about Dad. Dad never once asked about her. I’d sit at his bedside, patiently listening to his myriad of complaints, primarily surrounding the whereabouts of his car. I couldn’t determine which was working the harder to take him: dementia or his demons. They had joined hands, I think, and became indistinguishable, like terror twins.

The last time I would see Mom was the morning of August 12th, one more date of significance I would add to my life calendar. It was on that same morning Bill told me what he thought of me. I had come to him with an apology over my petulant behavior the previous day. His response was unexpected. Bill interrupted and with surprising fury, proceeded to list all that was wrong with me: my voice was too loud and too high pitched (what the hell?), I was too bossy and the rest I can’t remember because all I could hear was the echo of my father. A warning: when someone starts a conversation with, “I love you, but…” my advice is to leave the scene without haste and don’t look back because nothing good ever comes from it. I turned away before he could complete his tirade to hurt me further. What I understood at that moment was that despite how determinedly we fight not to become the shadows of our parents, some battles just can’t be won.

Sorrow, grief, and stress can bring out the worst or the best in us. Those were the days our family was required to be tender with one another. We needed to choose our words carefully and above all to understand that each of us was processing Mom and Dad’s struggle in different ways. I have often reflected that if Dave, Bill, and I had lashed our lifeboats together we might have better weathered our childhood storms. As it was, we kept to our separate leaking vessels and tossed about in the sea of our sufferings, only to occasionally gather in agreement that Dad was nuts and Mom was a saint. Then waving our goodbyes, off we’d sail believing we were the captains of our emotional ships. My mother died the night of August 12 and so did my relationship with Bill.

Planning mom’s funeral with Dad’s input was an exercise of near insanity. He wanted Frank Sinatra songs embedded in the stained glass frames of a church he hadn’t attended in 40 years. We just nodded (best approach with dementia) and moved on with what we thought Mom would have wanted – which was to have her ashes spread at Maroon Bells. Dad wouldn’t agree to her wishes as he feared she would be alone in the mountains. I didn’t bother to tell him that the remarkable flourishing of Maroon Bells might be slightly attributed to the thousands of urns that had been tumbled upside down there and Mom would have ample company. Bill wouldn’t discuss the dispersal of Mom’s ashes and I decided I wouldn’t bring it up with David. 

Despite family objections, I was determined to give Mom what she wanted. So, Daulton, and I, in charge of mom’s cremation asked the slightly creepy cremation guy to split mom up. We had Big Mom, the majority of her ashes in a fine marble urn (Labor day sale on all urns, guaranteed to last 150 years!) to be interred at the Mediation Glen in Colorado Springs and then Secret Little Mom, just enough of her in a small sterling silver vase. One month after Mom’s funeral and without informing my brothers or father, Daulton and I drove to Maroon Bells with Secret Little Mom riding in the front console of our SUV. My daughter thought mom was thoroughly enjoying the intrigue.

The weather had turned raw and wintry by the time we made it to Aspen from Denver. Cold, sleety, heavy white clouds hovered over The Bells. We sat in the car for two hours before deciding this day would not belong to Mom. Daulton said, “Let’s give it 10 more minutes and if the weather doesn’t improve, we’ll bring her back another day.” I moaned.

I’m not good at this stuff: death, ashes, finality, grief, and the feeling of my soul ripped from my body. I was nearly immobilized by the ache of wanting to have said more, to have done more, to have loved her better – to have saved her life.

The day the doctors and nurses gave up on her, the same day I permitted her transfer to hospice and consigned her to the velvet claws of morphine, Mom placed my hand upon her heart. Weeping, she said I was a fine, beautiful woman and that she was proud of me. She and I were “one”, she wept, and she would wait for me in Heaven where we would dance together. I silently begged God if I could take all those decisions back. But no, course not. Still, she had spoken the words I had waited to hear all my life and as I, weeping, too, held her hand on my heart, thought, “Oh, God, mom. Why did we wait so long to love as we do now?”

As though on cue, the weather miraculously cleared. A sweet breeze wafted across The Bells, shredding the clouds like cotton candy revealing the crisp, Colorado Blue Sky. Daulton said, “Perfect. Let’s take your mom for a walk”. Snug in his coat pocket, mom strolled with my husband, her weeping youngest child tagging behind. The sun had burst streaming rays through its ethereal shroud as though God himself and all the angels had come to celebrate as my husband released my mother to the high mountain air. She glimmered. She was a beautiful arc of silver sparkles as the breeze lifted her across the meadow she adored. I breathed in the sharp, clean cold air of The Bells. Mom was free of her pain, free of my father, and free of her anguished children. And then, just like that, the clouds commenced their return, embracing the mountain crests, eager to release their blanket of gentle white over my mother.

As we walked from the meadow, arrayed in all its autumnal glory, I turned and over my shoulder I watched Mom dance in the blue mist.