Ground Zero

Ground Zero and Square one sometimes seem to blend together.

Once when I was in my 50s, I asked my mother a rather simple question.

“Mom, if you had it to do over again, would you have had me?”

My heart, if not in my throat, was throbbing quietly to a fear that scrambled for escape.

My mother, a rather taciturn blend of Scottish, Irish, English genes was somewhat unpredictable.

She could morph from a sweet loving woman who would allow you to nestle beneath her ample bosom into a straight laced Victorian prude who removed you firmly from that spot.

The scene is now set for my question, the underlying fear squelched momentarily.

I watch my mother’s body language intently.  Especially her eyes.

I catch a slight glimmer of annoyance quickly replaced by a blank sheet of neutrality. 

Her body turns slightly as she gazes pensively out the window.

My fear begins to escalate, the beat of my heart rises by several decibels.

I watched her even more carefully.

As she continues to gaze out the window she places her thumb beneath her chin and her forefinger against her cheek.

By this time several minutes have passed.

To me these moments seem like an eternity.

I wait silently.

She eventually turns, faces me square on, looks carefully at my eyes and replies,

“Perhaps not.”

I am devastated.

My fear and my anxiety melt and blend into a mixed bag of emotions.

It begins somewhere in my toes.

I look down and see they are knotted and clenched as I resist the urge to kick her in the face. 

That emotion quickly disappears, submerged by a tidal wave of guilt.

How could I possibly think this about my mother?

This is the woman who conceived me, carried me for nine months and brought me into this world. 

This is an amazing woman who struggled to rise above grief that most could not imagine. Blah, blah, blah!

True, she had watched me for over 50 years and sometimes I believed she knew me better than I knew myself.

I was very arrogant in the blindness of my observations, unwilling to give her credit for what I believed was completely within my own control.

She tested me often and I, again from arrogance, chose to stab myself in the heart. 

The knife I used to do the job, dripped with my perception of her cruelty and injustice.

I wallowed in self pity, gathering more resentments, as I sank into that deep abyss.

Thankfully the abyss was not bottomless even though it seemed like a huge void that threatened to consume and trap me for an eternity.

However as I practiced slowing down I began to sense the rough edges that held hope.

I had slid into this void many times in my life. 

Sometimes the fall felt like being trapped in a torture chamber. And yet each time I would find a bottom that gave me time to rest and regroup.

Over the years this process began to assume a familiar pattern. 

This pattern in the regularity of its rhythm allowed me to gain some sense of equilibrium. 

In that relative space of calmness, small crevices and ample handholds appeared before my eyes.

My mother died the year I turned 61.

We had been blessed to have come to a truce several years before.

Oh, the truce was somewhat arbitrary. And yet it held a binding quality that assisted both of us in moving through what had once been a troubled war zone.

Our guards came down - cautiously.

The true love that did exist between us seemed to rise up and soften the jarring spots that had damaged each of us over the years.

One of the best experiences I ever had with my mother was being with her when she drew her last breath on this planet.

She was 81 when she was diagnosed with cancer, virtually untreatable.

She suffered greatly and yet appeared to be up to the fight to gain time.

My father and siblings seemed to buy her charade and encouraged her to seek treatment.

Me? 

Not for an instant.

We sat alone in her hospital room one day.

She knew that I, of all those who loved her and surrounded her in these final hours, would tell her the truth.

Others held out their expectations that she could survive a series of treatments that would lay her low for a long time. They encouraged her to reach out and cling to that slim thread.

I believe they honestly wanted that to be a reality. Somehow blinders seemed to cloud the fact that treatment was mostly a short lived illusion.

And so that afternoon we sat alone.

She was silent on the bed. I believed her to be asleep.

I sat quietly in a chair beside her. I had a book to read, which I closed each time she drew a breath and attempted to speak words to me.

I was reading when I heard the sigh that signaled her wanting my attention.

I put the book down, turned to her with gentle eyes and softly said, 

“Yes mom?”

She sighed again, sought strength from a source beyond her own and then turned to face me full on.

My heart started to beat louder. I wanted to leave the room but knew I must stay.

She held my gaze, took a deep breath and said to me,

“Do you think I would survive chemotherapy and radiation?”

I was caught. I wanted to run, but knew that cowardly response went against the grains of my Leo nature.

She’d watched that nature since my birth and knew she could rely upon me to tell her the truth as I saw it.

I took her hand as it lay beside her on the bed.

I closed my eyes, pondered a response and took several deep breaths.

As I held her hand and opened my eyes, I whispered, “ I believe that if YOU believe, anything is possible.”

A peaceful look came across her face.

That peace washed over me and so I took her hand and arm into mine.

I gazed deeply into her eyes and firmly stated, “I will take as much of the cancer away as possible and give you as much of my life energy as I can.”

She smiled gently as she’d watched me give away that energy freely over the years.

I held her hand gently, closed my eyes and began to pray.

It began at my fingertips. They started to tingle. The tingle began to throb.

I took deeper and deeper breaths as I began to feel the impact of her sickness creeping into my fingers.

I clasped her hand more firmly as the cancer began to unwind its tendrils from its stranglehold on her body.

Like any keen predator, it sensed fresh meat and slowly began to seek the path that would take it to a new kill.

By this time my fingers were numb, my hand ached unbearably and as the cancer moved from my mother to me, we caught each other's eye.

She looked at me carefully. 

She saw the deep love I felt for her and the willingness I possessed to give her much of my life energy.

She smiled with a serenity that I will never forget and at the same time slowly withdrew my hands from her body.

I was startled, sad and yet very grateful.

The pain had reached my elbow and the intensity as it prepared to further invade my body, gave me fear that I would pass out.

We sat, still quiet. No words were necessary. We each saw clearly the path ahead and we each lovingly accepted what that journey was to bring.

She died several weeks later.

It was 3:30 in the morning. 

She and I were alone in a room of a newer building that stood upon the spot of the old hospital where I’d been born 61 years previously.

I gazed out at fir trees that were probably over 100 years old.

I heard her last breath and felt the connection of knowing she’d ushered me in those many years before. An incredible sense of peace descended as I thanked her for allowing me to see her out.

In many ways this experience placed me at a square I shall call ‘the beginning’.

It offered me an opportunity to begin anew, yet again. It allowed me to look more closely at the path I was on and it gave me the spur I needed to make necessary adjustments.

Ground Zero took a number of years longer.

I diligently worked at cleaning away rubble, weeds and major pieces of debris.

It was the month before I turned 75 that the final detonation occurred.

I had major surgery to repair many years of arthritic damage. I spent 2 weeks hospitalized and returned home to begin a recovery that would take almost a year to complete.

I had but little choice other than to slow down.

I wanted to be defiant and stubborn, but knew that act would simply increase the likelihood of further damage.

I looked around at my life and realized that the detonation had not destroyed the core of my being. I knew with little doubt that I could survive and forge onwards. I knew that life was indeed good.

As I write, I adjust the sling that supports my repaired arm and shoulder.

As I shake out the fabric as best as possible with one hand, a huge smile begins to spread from my silent lips down to the tip of my relaxed toes.

With total serenity I wave the sling above my shoulder and admit defeat.

The peace that descends and permeates my body speaks only of the pleasure of surrender.

I understand completely that defeat is but an illusion and that I’ve been blessed with a gift.

I sense my mother around me.

I know she is smiling❤️