My First day without a Mother

It was difficult to get Mom to smile for a picture.
This is one of her smiles I like the most.
It is a grainy still frame from a video I took
at her 90th birthday before she realize I was
filming.  

Although my Mom has been leaving us for some time now, yesterday she moved on physically. Her last few years were like the journey of many elderly people. We have come to a point where medical technology can keep the old alive, but not necessarily living.   The ultimate irony is that we keep a body alive only to lose the mind inside.

I was last with her two weeks ago when my brother, sister and I went to see her in Dallas.  All three kids together with her, the four of us alone.  There was enough Pampy inside to let us have moments of genuine eye contact and maybe a sentence or two.  Her stories were mostly nonsense to us.  She seemed to follow them quite well for a moment or two.  

At one point she said very clearly, “The Boys are telling me it’s about time to shut this thing down.” Since that is a very Toler family expression and she always referred to her brothers as THE boys we kids assumed she was referring to her brothers who have all passed, two within the last year.  Clearly she was in communication with them and they were getting anxious to have her join Dad and the family.  

I have communicated more with Pampy though my heart than actual conversation over the last year.  As the “middle child” I claim a relation with Pampy that is different from my only younger sister and my only older brother.  Since I left the house at 21 years old most of my relationship with Pampy has been by phone, and more recently by email.  In fact for a long time I wrote this blog for her enjoyment alone. She told me once she felt like she knew what I was doing when I wrote the blog stories. Her exact words were, “I can keep up with you.”  There were a couple of times she took my comedy seriously and I had to explain it was a joke. I suspect that she is able to read it with more clarity now.

I could always call Mom and talk to her, particularly in lonely times on the road.  I would feel better by just telling her where I was.
  

This is what I remember at this moment about Mom/Pampy.

I arrived in Pittsburgh for a corporate show and a couple of my bags did not make the connection.  I was trying to put together an act from what I carried on.  One of the producers was looking to rent a suit for me... all he could find was a tuxedo. It was a long time at the airport waiting for no bags,  now I was pushing it to be ready for showtime. It was April 1st and this all could be some cosmic prank but April 1st is also Pampy’s birthday. In a moment to take a deep breath I called my Mommie. 

I am sure Dad was also on the line so we talked about the kind of cake he got her and what they were doing to celebrate her birthday.  They asked about me, where was I today. I tried to make this corporate show from hell sound as glamorous as I could, but Pampy, in her intuitive way, is not buying it.  She gets the truth out of me.
Pampy was a spiritual woman and what ever way she prayed worked... in mysterious ways.  Her spiritual growth continued all her life and she knew it all from the basics to the metaphysics. My siblings will agree that she had some connection to the mystic and spiritual side.  However, she could make it work more for others than for herself.  She never thought she was good enough to be good enough at something good. If that is a riddle then that could be a perfect metaphor for Pampy. 

She said something like, “Those cases will show up.  God sent you there with everything you need to do your show. I know it, Honey.”  I felt a lot better but,  I had called Pampy to wish her a happy birthday and she ended up giving me a spiritual mind treatment.  We said goodbye, happy birthday, April Fools etc. and I hang up.  I have just enough time to pull whatever I can do together and tell the producer to get the Tux.  The hotel phone rings, I think it might be Pampy calling back but it is Front Desk.  

“Your bags were just delivered do you want us to send them up to your room?”

The bags arrived in 5 minutes. From that moment on it was like every other hotel ballroom show I have ever done before or since.  Everything was there right where it should be at that moment. I had not really needed those cases or what was inside until that exact moment.  

Some might say that Pampy had nothing to do with it and coincidences happen sometimes. Well,  if you think so, you didn’t know Pampy. If only chance is involved once in a while the things that Pampy prayed for would not come to be.  Not to say they all did.  But they happened with greater frequency than any odds maker would ever give.  

There are more stories. They will come to mind again with the spark of some unrelated stimulus in times to come.  We all agree our Moms are magical, creative, imaginative, artistic loving Angels.  No need for me to present more proof here now.  If you had known her for as long as I knew her you would agree with this statement. There is absolutely nothing in her life she has done that would disqualify her from an executive suite at whatever concept of heaven she wants to live in.  The idea of where she would spend eternity was something she thought about a lot.  She loved to contemplate such things on walks.  She was walking the property until she was neither physically nor mentally able to so.  She told me once, “I’m not sure I like this idea of a Heaven with streets paved in gold like they talk about.” She paused and laughed through the next part, “Can you imagine how hot those streets would get. Paved in gold is ridiculous, I’m not walking those streets.” 

It’s been a year since Pampy could call me on speed dial, and that long since I could call her.  Most of our last calls involved me trying to remind her “God sent YOU with everything you need to do your show”.   There is a direct line to my heart that is on Pampy's celestial speed dial now.

As you were,

Jay