...and more pain

Sorry faithful readers, but this is what is in my head tonight and it needs to come out. I need to write this stuff down, but there's really no need for you to read it, is there?

Five years ago (almost to the hour) I was in the Portland Airport waiting to catch the red eye to Chicago. I didn't have a cell phone, so I used an airport pay phone to call the hospital where my mother lay dying. She had suffered a massive embolism a few hours earlier and I didn't know if she would make it through the night. I was flying across the country in hopes of making it to her bedside before the end. As I waited for my connecting flight, I called the hospital from a pay phone in the middle of a vast, echoing airport lounge. The nurse at the front desk was kind enough to transfer the call to my mother's room where another nurse picked up the receiver and held it to my unconscious mother's ear. I could hear her breathing, heavy and slow, over the wire as I wept uncontrollably. People walking by shot glances at me then looked away.

What does one say in such a situation? One lies. I told her that everything would be OK. I told her that she didn't have to wait for me or my brothers or anyone else, when she was ready, she should just let go. I promised to take care of everything and everybody and told her not to worry about a single thing. She didn't hear or comprehend me; I know that. We like to tell ourselves more lies about "something deep inside her soul comprehending" but it's bullshit. It didn't matter; I said the words anyway. I don't know why; I knew I couldn't help her any more. Maybe I thought the words could somehow help me, protect me. I was wrong.

She made it through the night. I did everything I could to reach her, but despite my best efforts, she breathed her last literally moments before I made it to her bedside. When I entered the room, she was still registering a few stray, erratic heart beats, but she had released her final breath. She was still warm.

What would it have mattered if I'd gotten there 15 minutes earlier? What would it have mattered if I hadn't come at all? Nothing would be different now, nothing would have been different then. She would still be gone and I would still be in this deep, unassailable pain. Her life would still be a monument to unconquerable goodness in the face of constant assaults by a capricious god. Job's suffering was nothing compared to hers, but like him, she would not curse god. She had faith, despite what she suffered at this so-called loving god's hands. A victim of great evil, she was always a force for good.

I want to take comfort from that, but I don't. How could someone who did so much good for so many people never catch one single break for herself? Just unlucky, I guess. The example of her life makes it difficult to believe in a just and loving deity. I guess he was too busy smiting infidels to hear this particular sparrow fall.

She would be appalled to hear me say that, but that's the thing - she's can't hear me any more. She has gone beyond the sound of my voice. Whatever power my paltry words may have held for her is broken.

I know, I know, five years, get over it already, but I can't. I can't.