Sleep Softly, Mama

OCTOBER 1985: The room, though quite warm, seemed cold — icy cold. I sat beside her bed, wanting to be away from this scene, away from this view imposed upon me. I could not escape; there was nowhere I could go to rid my­self of the inevitable. I could neither run nor walk; even my mind felt a strange paralysis.

I, whom the others had lauded as being able to per­form miracles with this now-strange woman — I, to whom they all so fondly deferred — proved as helpless as they. I did not know what to do.

Her hazel, blue-gray eyes, now red-rimmed from lack of moisture, looked into my blue ones, searching for a re­sponse to what she had just said. Then she turned her head slightly to the right to avoid my intense but unvoiced questioning, then back to me with the sense of love I had seen so often in the past, and even so recently — the expres­sion that only Mama knew how to give.

That expression said everything without need of spo­ken words; but at this moment, I was in another world, apart, beyond. . . .

“Did you hear me, Sonny? Just let me die when my time comes.” I tried not to listen; it was more than I could bear. I sobbed; and as I tried to speak, only a quaver came forth.

Mama reached for me; her hand found mine. “Don’t, don’t.” It was Mama’s voice, but from a thousand miles away.

She stretched out her words: “Don’t — do — that. It would be — different — if I was — in any great pain, but

— I’m — not. And besides, I’m— an — old — woman.”

Mama would deny her discomfort to save someone else the burden; now she had resigned herself to a fate from which there seemed no withdrawal. “Just — let — me — die.” I blocked the words from my consciousness; I refused to hear what I did not want to hear, what I could not bear to hear.

My thoughts were interrupted by an involuntary ut­terance that came from somewhere else — as though from afar — borne of sincere seriousness, yet low in volume and pitch: “Just know that I love you, Mama; and I wish I knew what to do to make everything the way it ought to be.”

The hollow sounds were my own; they bounced back and forth inside my head. I sank back into my chair, but reached forward to caress her forehead and hair, and to smooth the wrinkles on the edge of the yellow, monogrammed pillowcase.

Again she turned her face toward mine, then away. She sighed and closed her eyes against the filtered light.

If there were any eloquence in suffering, my mother expressed it with utmost dignity. But at this point, I did not care about propriety or decorum; I wanted . . . I did not know what I wanted. . . .