The Umbilical Chord is Never Cut

Today my Mother has gone home to live alone for the first time in her life. With the urn containing what is left of my Step-dad's physical self strapped firmly into the passenger seat next to her, Mom drove away from my little Sister's house where she has been staying since Jim passed away on May 1st.

I would say I can't imagine what was going through Mom's mind as she left the busy city and headed out into the countryside to face a new life without her husband by her side. But I can imagine. She is my Mother. The umbilicial chord is never cut.

Even though she is over a thousand miles away, my heart hurts today because I can feel her pain. I know, on a much smaller scale, what it feels like to lose the one you love. I know that utter sense of isolation and loneliness when you awaken at three o'clock in the morning without your beloved next to you. The whole world is asleep and you are the last living soul on the planet. It is just you and your thoughts and a deep, dark stillness.

Then morning comes and there is no escaping the fact that you are utterly and completely alone. No one there to say "Good Morning!". No one taking up the bathroom. No one to give you a kiss and a hug or pour you a cup of coffee. It is just utter emptiness. Your Soul feels like a bottomless well and your are falling falling falling. You will never hit bottom nor will you ever will return to life. It is the great void, the absence of all that is love.

There are no words of comfort that can take away the pain of a loss such as this. It is something we humans all must go through if we dare to love. The only medicine is time.

My heart is with her today, trying to send all the love I can muster through that everlasting chord that bonds Mother and Child. I will be sending her a big teddy bear so she has something to hold onto when she feels like she can't go on. It doesn't matter how old you are, nothing can comfort like a teddy bear. It breaks my heart I can't be with her, to hold her and hug her and wipe her tears, to fix her supper and tuck her in. My Mother is strong, but even strong people need tender loving care sometimes.

You know, it seems to me that even though we really need each other during the bad times, we need each other more in the "every day" times. If we nourish and strengthen each other with love and caring when we are not in crisis, we can more easily endure those times when we face life's greatest challenges. So go out and love someone well today, you will be helping them more than you know.