A Well-Lived Life Ends

Goodbye, Mom.

I have been in Utah for two weeks because my mother was dying, and she passed away one week after I got here, on November 6, 2009 at the age of 84 years and 8 months.

My mother was both brilliant and naive, loving and domineering, enthusiastic about her own interests, pessimistic and negative about those of which she didn't approve or share. Often, she didn't approve of me. I learned to deal with it, though often her anger and disapproval hurt or enraged me. But, as my husband observed once, people are a mixed bag. Mom certainly was.

At the end of the day, though, I always knew my mother loved me. She had serious anxiety issues and never really learned to adequately control her emotions. However, the strength she taught me gave me the ability to stand up to her disapproval and do what I knew to be right.

Each day since her death has been a little easier. Having watched her decline for nearly 3 years made it easier to say the long goodbye. I am glad she is in a better place, no longer prisoner in that pain-riddled, deteriorating body.