Three years ago today, I held my mother’s hand as she took her last breath. This is the post I wrote the day after. Today I am remembering a moment towards the end of her days when she was at Hospice. I never had a lot of time to have the heart-to-heart conversation with her that I yearned for. Things were moving too fast; I was too busy with Dad, and Mom was too sick. But on this afternoon, for the minutes she was awake, I leaned over her bed and said, “I’m going to have to find a way to talk to you.” She said, “Yes, you will.” Then I cried the tears I tried so hard to hide from her. She reached up with both of her arms and cupped my face between her two hands, giving me a lifetime of gratitude and love, a million words of goodbye, in one moment I will cherish forever.
On Thursday night I heard my mother stir and I rose from my bed on the floor in the corner of her room and hurried to her side.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as she roused from the deep sleep she had been in all day.
“Nothing’s wrong, Mom.”
“Someone’s crying,” she said.
In my mom’s 78 years on this planet, I imagine she heard and answered a lot of someones crying. In the 1950s through the 1970s she was raising five children who had been born within six years, including my sister Annie who was extremely disabled. I suspect there were a lot of times someone was crying.
Even as we grew older we were sometimes crying: me coming home from college carrying a basket of laundry when a relationship ended; a long-distance phone call to speak of a loved one who died; a conversation about one thing or the…
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Christine M. Grote 
I remember this post. Sometimes time has a way of feeling like it’s been longer.
Yes. I think about you and wonder how you are doing. I don’t remember how long your mother has been gone.
It is hard to believe that it has been 3 years. I still and will always think of her and your dad often.
It’s good to hear from you Paula. You were so good to them, and a comfort, at a time when they really needed it. I know they appreciated it.
What a precious moment you shared with your mom.
It’s good to hear from you Patti. It was a precious moment. It’s funny how one small moment in time can become such a big and significant memory.
What a precious moment in time between the two of you. Mother and daughter, bound together forever.
I suppose that’s true. I miss her, not every day anymore, but many times.
People never really leave they just step to the side.
I hope that’s true.
I know it’s true.