There are times when something strikes me, a phrase, a word, something I pass along side the road, something I read or something someone casually mentions - it really could be any matter of thing. The difference is that it hits me with perfect aim, catching my attention and causing a head-turn, a squint, or an "I'm sorry - come again?" I recognize the truth of that particular something and know we will meet again; I tuck it into a pocket like a smooth stone I'll rub between my fingers while waiting.
The most recent such something arrived nearly two months ago while my mother and I were talking on the phone. I don't remember exactly what I was saying, but her response tells me I was weighing a decision of whether to do something sooner or later. I don't mean a pedestrian task like emptying the dishwasher, but rather a fork-in-life's-road type of contemplation. To respond, she quoted a line she'd recently read, but I wasn't yet paying enough attention to remember to whom she gave credit.
"You don't have as much time as you think you do."
I paused.
It smacked me as irrefutable and I knew I must take heed. Into the pocket it went.
Perhaps you're already considering a few rebuttals that this might not have been a real something:
First, it'd be natural she'd want me to grab life before it's too late; at 91 she likely splashes the realization of running out of time into her morning coffee each day. But that's not her personality at all, being pessimistic. A worrier I'll give you, but never a "woe is me"-er. No, that wasn't why she said it.
Then perhaps I'd been subconsciously advice shopping on that particular decision, and when she offered some that resonated with what I secretly wanted to do anyway - I snatched it. Hmmm.... closer.
But then my mother died suddenly just a few weeks after that conversation. Fortunately, it wasn't our last phone call, which would have sent her words instantly into the horrible premonition hall of fame. We had a few more calls and an email or two...
Pardon me.
Okay.
I can type that sentence now, "my mother died suddenly...", but not easily.
See, my father died four years ago, gradually declining and giving us all time to say goodbye to the man we'd known who'd left us long before my brother called me with the final news. No, my mother went from one hundred percent to zero with no illness or suffering in between those states. The best way to go at 91, if one had to choose. I wouldn't trade a few more years with her if the cost were watching her spark dim and she certainly wouldn't have either. In the end, I'm convinced it was the exit she would've chosen. The Irish goodbye. Tell folks you're just popping into the the other room and then slip out the backdoor.
In her absence, I hear her advice with ever increasing clarity: You don't have as much time as you think you do. It is the something I still keep in my jacket pocket; I don't consider her death to have redeemed it. Her words were as blunt and non-negotiable as her departure.
What I want to do with my time is write, so here I am.
To Sheila, one heck of a writer and my incredible mother. You're with me.
