Walking Mother to the Gate

“You are a good woman,” Mother whispers as I lean close. 

“Why are you telling me this,” I say to her, not quite teary, because I am determined to truly celebrate her’s and my very long relationship, the team she and I have been through 55 years of joy and heartbreak and everyday life.

(She and I have lived together, either in her house or mine for that many years. It counts as the longest relationship I have ever had. This is not a situation for everyone. But it was God’s plan for she and I.)

“I want you to know that’s what I think about you, when I go through the Pearly Gates”, she answers.

Pearly Gates is her euphemism for Heaven, which is way better than the other times when she expresses doubt there is even such a thing and thinks somehow she is going to be aware she’s in the ground with worms until.. well, forever or .. back in tune with God, when Jesus returns. 

I am glad for this repeated comment, because it will sooth me when the gates open up for her.  But that’s after I take a moment to feel a bit guilty for resenting how much toilet paper she has stuffed in every pocket these last few months. Everytime I’ve just cussed away when I would unload the washing machine and find wads of shredded paper and lint. 

(She’s always had a thing about toilet paper and Kleenex taking every opportunity to kype it wherever she fines it, be it the doctor’s office or a friend’s house. Full disclosure. She also stole packets and packets of fake sugars from every restaurant she ever went into. And entire candy dishes of sweets no matter whose house she’s visiting or what party she was attending.)

There are a few other things I feel momentarily guilty about, but remind myself, with full knowledge from the Holy Spirit these last weeks, that I shouldn’t be surprised, the best we can do is never good  enough because, duh, we are human.

I am also selfishly glad this refrain has taken the place of the other one that was on repeat until these last few weeks. This one:”Do you even remember how to flirt. You need a man, especially when I am gone!”

Her pups around her, I take a seat in the gray chair (Mother NEVER liked gray things) that I installed in her new room, the one in our new house.  We moved here 4 months ago.  It hadn’t escaped me that my Mother’s death would be the christening for this new home of ours. If things go the way I pray they do, she will pass on to Paradise in the bed that looks out onto a new neighborhood full of hopeful people, most who are just starting their adult journey. 

Middle son and I talked about this. He knew I was thinking of Jake and Silent Bob and our other home.  Both John and Josh knew that this all white, airy new place had lifted a weight off my shoulders. That and it made it possible for me to shed 45 years of stuff that I was way to sentimental about. 

“It’s part of living, this dying thing,” is what I think I said to John. True things are true. And the truth of Doris Azilee Jones is that almost 92 years, with your mind mostly in tact, your fingernails painted red, rings on each hand, no memory of the only 8 years of that 92 of bad health, and a life full of family, is about the best one can ask for. I am determined to celebrate. There are other things not so good that could christen a home. The cycle of life is inevitable. Besides, I know in whom I trust. 

“How come you have no doubts,” she asks me. She’s opened her eyes a bit, coughs a little, I wonder if she read my thoughts. “I have talked to God all my life and I know he loves me, but I am still scared.”

I know what she is saying. I think it would be foolish to not admit to that cold sweat in the middle of the night when you wonder, well, really, I am going to have to die one day. 

“It’s not that I don’t have doubts. Everyone does,” I say as I think about what part of my faith is doubt and what part isn’t. 

“Mother, there are things that we can’t know on this side. There are things that are confusing. I don’t know how to imagine Paradise (I actually say Pearly Gates here, for her). But I do know this..”

I have her full attention and she’s listening with that lucidity that seems impossible since she’s not eaten hardly anything for a month. She weighs a little bit more than 80 pounds. 

“Mother, for all that I don’t know or doubt or understand, I do know the miracles God had given me in this life. I cannot deny them. I cannot deny how the Holy Spirit guides me and does so with increasingly clarity. I can’t discount the peace that can come over me where there should be nothing but chaos.” 

I am mentally recounting the miracles God has performed, living again each one, and the love that is behind the years of them, from my Creator. The peace and security of it all flows over me like warm sunshine. 

I look at Mother, and she is nodding, and we are both basking in the light of faith. She closes her eyes and says.”Thank you for talking to me about God,” and I know she too is remembering a faithfulness that moves doubt to things true.  

Mother and I aren’t quite finished with talking, but almost. Figuring out when we are going to get to the gates is turning out to be a harder road. She’s that tough. But we are closer every day. 

Mother and I don’t have any words left unsaid, no places we wished we’d visited, no resentments built up or issues that need to be reconciled. The truth is that for her, on this earth I am everything. She has yet to forget my name. Not because her memory is perfect, but we have been that intwined. Her neural pathways have “Jan” running through so many of them, I am her person until the gates open up. She knows it and so do I.

Yesterday morning I went into her room around 7am. Gave her a hug, kissed her forehead. She opened her eyes and looked at me for a minute and said” I could care less”. I said “What”?.. She said “ your t-shirt says ‘guess what day it is’. 

The only day that matters now is the one where you wait for me, we will be in Jesus’ presence along with your Gloria, my Jake, your Jack, my Silent Bob, and all those who have gone before and after. Whatever that looks like be it Pearly Gates, Paradise or a new heaven and earth, if there is sugar packets and red fingernails, I won’t be the least bit surprised.