A Long-Ago Message From My Mother

For many years, too many, I have not given much thought to Mother's Day.

My mom died on Aug. 10, 1984 in Morristown Memorial Hospital. Throat cancer took her. It was too painful for many years to even acknowledge the holiday, so I didn't.

She was incredibly brave throughout her illness. She found out what was going to kill her about a year before. The lump that surfaced on the side of her neck was not a swollen gland, it was cancer. They couldn't even do surgery until she had a round of chemotherapy to shrink the tumor.

She went to the doctor alone when she got the news, to my eternal regret. She called me on an August night to tell me. She was calm and upbeat, unlike me. She fought it for a year, then the struggle ended. She was incredibly brave.

I remember one trip on the way home from the doctor. I asked her if she was afraid.

"I have to be strong for my kids," she said. "But I want to see Daddy."

My father had died two years before, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. They were married at the height of World War II, my father in his Navy uniform, in St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was 105 degrees that Aug. 5. But my mother said she was too nervous to notice.

They were married for almost 40 years. Adopted two kids, my sister Susan and I, then had my brother and my sister.

She wasn't able to speak the last several weeks of her life. We didn't want to remind her that Aug. 5 was her 40th wedding anniversary. But she remembered. "Our anniversary" she wrote in the kitchen calendar in a shaky hand.

She went into the hospital a few days later. She wanted to go home. I was making arrangements for home care and a hospital bed when she died late in the afternoon of Aug. 10.

I was angry for months after she died. Not at her. At God. How could he take her so soon after my father? I stopped praying, stopped going to church.

I stayed angry for more than half a year, until the dream.

My siblings and I were in our Basking Ridge house, starting the painful process of dismantling my parents' lives and belongings. The doorbell rang. My mother stood in the sunlight on our front step.

"Mom, what are you doing her? I can't believe this," I stuttered.

My mother stepped into the front hall. She was surrounded by a pure, crystalline white light.

"I just came back for one day," she said. "I wanted to let you know that I am in a beautiful place. I don't want you to worry about me."

She made her way upstairs. The stunning white light surrounded her, no matter what room she walked into. Each room lit up when she stepped into it, an explosion of white light.

That dream was a gift. I knew she was in a good place. My bitterness started to fade.

Call the dream wishful thinking. Call it just a dream. But for me, it was a comforting message from the mother I loved so dearly.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. We all miss you.

Image: Courtesy FTD