My dad called me to get on the next plane home because he didn't know how much more time my mom had. My mother had been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer just six months earlier. My immediate reaction, when I saw the frail body of my mother was to climb beside her in bed and hold her. I thanked her for being my mother and for how much she meant to me. I thanked her for how much her love and devotion, as well as unending encouragement, led me to obtain two master's degrees and to be a person of true integrity. I told her that she was a major source of strength that got me through my last few years and my horrific divorce. She was the woman who gave me life, and now I was watching in sadness as her life was close to its end.
I spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday lying in my mother’s bed. I held her in my arms and we listened to peaceful Yanni music. I wanted so desperately for my mother to be safe and at peace when she passed. I also so desperately wanted to remember what she smelled like and what her soft hands felt like. I didn’t ever want to forget so I intently took in my surroundings so I could etch it in my brain and senses forever. On my mother’s death bed, I asked her to send me a sign that she was still around me in spirit form even when her physical body was gone. We decided together that a robin would be our sign. I told her that every time I see a robin, I would think of her and know she is at peace.
The final moment came at 5:40 am Monday June 15th. My mother took her final breath. Again, I did something I would never have imagined or planned. I held her in my arms for almost an hour after her passing. I couldn’t bear to say good-bye knowing that I could never touch her again or feel her soft hands in mine.
I was in Wisconsin and my children were in Colorado with friends. I needed to catch a plane as soon as possible and get my children so they could go to their grandmother’s funeral. I called several airlines and was finally able to book the last seat on a plane leaving for Colorado within a couple of hours. My older brother Bill took me to the airport and I ran through the terminal trying to catch the plane back to Colorado. I was one of the last people to board the Frontier flight headed west. I had only my purse in tow and quickly found where I was supposed to be sitting. It was a window seat mid-way down the aisle of the airbus airplane. When I got to my row there was an attractive woman in her mid-thirties sitting in the aisle seat and another woman in her mid-sixties sitting in the middle seat. I stopped at my row and looked at both women. I quietly stated that the window seat was mine. The woman sitting in the aisle was visibly disturbed that she needed to get up for me. She looked me straight in the eye, huffed and rolled her eyes at me. How dare I have a seat in the same row that she is already sitting in? The other woman was very accommodating and moved so I could get through. I sat in my seat and stared out the window thinking about my mother the whole time. I wasn’t crying. I was simply in shock that I will never see my mother again. The numbness held me captive, almost in a peaceful, quiet state of shock.
Midway through the flight, nature was calling. Unfortunately my favorite drink, diet coke or more appropriately “several diet cokes,” managed to make their way through my digestive system. Once again, I needed to have the women seated next to me allow me to get up and make it past them. The attractive woman in the aisle seat was really upset now. She needed to inconvenience herself yet again by getting out of her seat. She was going to make it very obvious once again that she was none too pleased to be bothered by such a request. The second time she rolled her eyes and huffed and puffed in disgust made me take pause. Really? You are upset about this? I just watched my mother take her final breath only a few short hours ago and you can’t be bothered to allow someone past you on an airplane? I was ready to confront her. I was ready to say “listen lady; if you want to compare who is having a “worse” bad day, I am going to win for sure.” However, my mouth never opened. I never uttered those words. I instead used the restroom and returned to my seat.
I ordered peanut M&M’s to eat because they were my mother’s favorite candy. I quietly sat in my seat for the remainder of the flight eating my M&M’s and thinking about my mother. No one on that airplane knew my mother died. I didn’t shed a tear. I simply acted like any other passenger who was traveling from one place to another. At the end of the flight, the woman in her sixties who was sitting next to me in the middle seat said, “Why are you flying to Colorado?” I told her that my mother had passed away this morning and that I was getting my children to bring them back to Wisconsin for her memorial service. The woman’s jaw nearly hit the floor. She said, "I would have no idea that your mother just passed. You were not crying or visibly upset, you simply sat here like any other passenger flying to their destination."
The woman in her sixties was exactly right. Why would she, or could she, have known anything about my life? I was simply a person flying in the window seat next her. I didn’t say a word to the incredibly rude woman in the aisle seat. I didn’t tell her “do you mind not huffing and puffing and rolling your eyes at me today?” My heart is heavy with pain and grief. Please don’t add to my bad day by being mean to me. I simply need to get past you because you have the aisle seat.
On June 15th, 2009, I learned a lesson that was etched in my psyche from that moment forward. No one carries a sign stating “my mother just died, could you please be nice to me today.” The sign could read anything: I just lost my job, my child is ill; I am going through a divorce…. But the deeper meaning is that no one SHOULD have to tell you they are having a bad day, week, month, or year. We SHOULD be kind to one another because we all walk this planet and we are all people with unknown circumstances. We DON’T have to know that person’s circumstances. Being respectful to a fellow human being should simply be the normal course of interactions we have with one another. You shouldn’t have to wear your grief on your sleeve for someone else to treat you with dignity and respect. No one comes here unscathed. We all have cycles of good and bad, joy and sorrow. But we will never know what cycle the person on the airplane, on the elevator, on the bus, or on the sidewalk is in. So, in the absence of knowing a person's current life circumstances, I error on the side of kindness - greeting others with a smile or holding the door open for them. I don’t ever want to compare bad days to anyone. I simply want to treat them with respect. My mother’s passing taught me a life lesson that will be with me until the day I pass on as well.
Remember always that you are worthy, you are lovable, and you deserve goodness in your life!
