The Kiss Goodbye

My mom

Her flesh was cold and hard as my lips touched my mother's cheek. I was kissing her goodbye, as her body lay in that coffin, spiritless. That morning before the funeral, my brother refused to see her dead and wanted only to remember her the way she was when she was alive. My sisters were getting ready, dressing in black and all I could think about was what my brother said. I wrestled with the choice I had to make whether I wanted to see my mom in that coffin or not. I just celebrated my 14th birthday a few days before and this decision seemed like something an adult should be making, not me.

When we arrived at the funeral parlor my sisters walked right into the room where our mom was, but I stayed back behind the room divider feeling hesitant and scared. Cindy, my best friend was there and she stood there with me, telling me that whatever I decided would be okay. I just couldn't get myself to round that corner and see my mom dead! As I glanced over I saw the old Italian lady who lived next door coming toward me. Her arms reached out as if she was going to hug me but she grabbed my arms with her sharp nails and started to shake me violently! She pulled me out from behind the room divider and turned me toward the casket screaming, "You did it! You killed her!, Are you happy now! You killed her!" I just stood there.......limp and shocked, my body felt like one of the rugs she used to shake off on her patio!

I could see the shock and awe on my friend Cindy's face and as fast as it all happened, Cindy's hand curled into a fist and her arm came up behind her! She was going to knock this old woman out! My mouth hung open, my body and mind were paralyzed and I felt like I had just been sucked into another dimension! Just as Cindy went to swing, my cousin Mary Catherine, who was a nun, stopped the flying fist, pulled the pointy nailed hands off of me and began to read "Grandma Di" the riot act! All this happened while I was still facing my dead mother's body. I know that Cindy and my cousin told me it wasn't my fault and they comforted me but it all seemed like I was deaf, I saw their mouths moving but it was just silence. I was numb.

There was this necklace that Cindy and I both wore as symbols of our friendship. It was a long piece of brown leather with three wooden beads on each end. We wore them knotted and they NEVER came off. The knot was impossible to untie because it had gotten wet so many times and I had worn it constantly for so long. It represented an unbreakable bond and I wanted to have it put in with my mom so she could have it forever and know how painful her leaving was for me. After things calmed down at the funeral home, my best friend took my hand and walked up to my moms casket with me. She knelt next to me as I talked to my mom and cried. When I finally stood up, I leaned over and placed the cut leather necklace on her hands and I kissed her. She wasn't there, her body was, but she wasn't. My mom was gone forever and at that moment I hardened my heart toward it all. I went through the motions for the rest of the days ceremonies and the following morning I just continued my regular routines. I never talked about her, I was angry and I felt abandoned.

It was about two years later when I was walking from my bedroom through the living room that I stopped cold in my tracks. I began to cry hysterically and I curled up on the floor in an inconsolable ball. All alone I lay there, I wanted to talk but she wasn't there to talk to, so I just kept crying and I couldn't stop for the longest time. She was really gone, never to be here again with warm skin or loving eyes. I could never curl up on her lap again, never make peanut butter kiss cookies again, I would never see her in the front window ever again as she greeted me home after school, and her table light would never be on again in the living room as she waited for me to fall asleep. Oh God, I miss her! Why did she have to go? And to this day I still miss her, I miss all that we could have done! She never saw me grow up and become a woman, she never got to meet my son, her grand-son Brandon or his beautiful wife, she never met her great-grandchildren Penny and Abram. So much we missed together.

That crazy old Italian woman took every opportunity she could to torment me until she finally died. Her evil act on the day of my mom's funeral stole something from me that I would only get back years later, when I finally learned about God's unconditional love. My mom loved me, she didn't want to leave me, I didn't do anything to cause her illness or death! I have a picture of her on my dresser and every time I look at it, I know that that is the same exact look that's going to be on her face when I meet her in heaven! I don't know why she had to be sick for so long and then have to leave us to go to heaven. People through the years have told me what she was like before she fell ill and that helped me to feel like I knew her a little better. I was also told that I was a lot like her and that, in and of itself was a great comfort to me, because I knew then, that my son and my grand-children really did get to know her.......through me :)


The memory of the righteous will be a blessing, but the name of the wicked will rot. Proverbs 10:7