What Really Matters

I visited Mom last night. The breathing tube is back in her mouth, not a tracheostomy like I was originally told. She was pretty alert but obviously couldn't talk. That's OK because I talked for both of us. There were some things that I needed to tell her, the sort of things that I would kick myself over forever if tomorrow came and she were gone. You'd be surprised how much can be communicated through eye contact and a squeeze of the hand. Even though she is frail now, the bond between mother and child is strong. I think that's probably one of the greatest gifts that having a child of my own has given me. Watching my son and my wife together has given me better perspective on the relationship with my own mother. Comfort does not come from spoken words. It comes from the other hand squeezing back. It comes from the touch of a hand on a troubled brow. It comes from the other's eyes looking back and wordlessly saying, "Yes, after all these years you and I are still in this thing together."

I told her how much I admired her strength and how I regretted not telling her more often about what a good job she did of raising me and my five siblings.

I told her about my earliest memories, of spending afternoons out in the boat watching her and dad fish when I was not much more than a baby, sitting in the bottom of the boat wrapped up in indian blankets with my books and my toy cars.

I told her what happy memories those were and how I remember the loving look on her face as she would tend to me. I told her what a blessing it was to have known for my entire life that I am loved, and I thanked her for giving that love to me.

I told her that her love lives on in how I am raising my own child because I learned from the best, and that if I do half as good a job as she did my son will turn out just fine.

Before I left I prayed with her as she held my hand and listened. I thanked God that no matter what His will is in the matter of my mother's health that a day will come when we will all be reunited and will be together forever in His grace. She knodded and squeezed my hand to voice her affirmations.

It felt good to tell her some of those things that only words can express. But it felt better knowing that the things that words can never express are right there in the open, and that in that sense at least there is nothing left unsaid between us, nothing to regret later.