Goodbye, Mother

“Your mother passed away at 3:34 this afternoon,” I hear my father matter-of-factly announce. I look over and catch my husband’s eye more than 100 feet away where I had crept to try to find a quieter spot to listen to the message. We had just gotten off the Astro Orbiter at Disney World in Orlando. I don’t even hear the rest of the voice message if there is more. But I am suddenly sobbing on his shoulder in the middle of the happiest place on earth. She wasn’t supposed to die today.

Death is an ugly thing. My mother had been ill for sometime, but had beaten the odds again and again over far greater complications. I had eaten dinner with her on a previous trip to Florida just three days ago. I don’t know how it was supposed to be but this wasn’t it. I am stunned left trying to accept the unacceptable. And I wonder if I were the daughter I should have been. Did she die proud of me? I always felt that I somehow fell short of her expectations—a disappointment—and there is a deep ache inside of me.

It will be days before I run again. And I have plenty I’ll need to work out on the roads.

Life is fleeting. God Bless you mom, and God speed. It is my hope that you have now found everlasting peace and heavenly comfort in the presence of your Saviour, and you at last are released from your pain and suffering. Goodbye mom, I love you.