From Death with Love
Death
There's a quote that I've heard plenty of times, “Out of death comes life”.
Your death would ignite my Pheonix fuse. For the flames would plague the field of my wildflower meadow that was embellished by the naive dandelion wishes of childhood.
The wish was that you would live forever.
1 Roman 14:8 reads, “If we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to God.”
For that, she truly did live for God. Just like everyone else you had her faults.
Sick
While you were fighting cancer, I was running to find a soft safe space. The only place I knew was in your arms, but I was determined to find it within myself. Had I known truly how sick you were I would have run home before the soft safe space would become a mellowed marsh.
I’ve never been good at transitioning from one task to the next since childhood. The biggest example would be going places. You would have to tell me 4 hours before with reminders every 30 minutes we were leaving because I would panic if she told me at the last minute.
That was the reason why you did not let me know and forbade others to tell me because I have run in panic.
October came with a phone call and a plane ride. Later, that year I would be home to witness the sun slide behind the horizon on my meadow.
The Walk
The window was open in the room, and the sweet scent of the flowers sent for comfort would entangle in a waltz with the warm breeze before the autumn freeze. It would escort us as we would walk down the lushes' green path that began to ombre with brown. For the path I would walk with God would be one only fire could forge. My last words other than I love you would be:
“If only one could simply count the hours, days, minutes, and years that we have shared together wouldn’t simply be enough. Let's do the math:
5,256,000 x 30 = 15,768,000 minutes (about 30 years)
That’s how much time we have had... those days have been filled with love, fear, and tears. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. As I told you, not enough time for me. The keyword in that sentence is ME. I’ve been so concerned about myself as any child would for the first time in a long time... I’ve just happened to think about you.
The reason why is that you cut off the umbilical cord. The swiftest cut I have ever experienced. It wasn’t traumatizing at all. No surgeon could have ever done it so well and as skillfully as you have. A cut that most children could feel and tremble at the knees, but I couldn’t feel it because it was done with so much love.
It was like the times you would tell me we were going to the store. Do you remember? So, many warnings like “Hey, Myriah you might want to get your shoes on” or “Put your shoes on”. If that didn’t work, it was either leave out the door or a hit with the crutch. Either way, I would go mad.
You’ve been doing this with your sickness for the last year?! You have been telling me to put my shoes on. I laugh now because there were so many warnings you gave me. I feel like I finally put my shoes on and I'm ready to go to the store with you.
I’m crying because of my own selfishness of wanting more time, but I realized that you have 38,921,040 minutes (about 74 years) of time. Those years are filled with the same things that we have shared.
I spent years trying to prove in some ways that you were [just are] more my mother than the other 3, but after becoming a mother myself... I don’t have to prove that to anyone because you have shown that in more ways than one.
I got my shoes on now. Let's go to the store.”
You whispered, “An you can get whatever you want”.
Seldom words were once feared between us. Now the silence would support your existence in your hospital bed.
For the end of your life sparked a fire for mine for I had no one to call for any inconvenience.
A week later I would lose my job, fail my biology final, and be served divorce papers.
Ten months later...
Because of your reassurance in the word of God letting go of you to hold on to him as the flames roared with grief.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 reads, “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away; A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak; A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace. What profit has the worker from that in which he labors?”
It was just your time... God’s time.
Your death ignited my life.
We know love never dies and I shall find it in every gentle breeze that surrenders to the leaves of the Weeping Willow trees.
I love you.
