My Mom Said 1 Word On Her Deathbed That Made Me Look At My Life In A Way I Never Had Before
We didn’t know Mom was going to die two days later.
“Girls, get in here so I can get my hands on you,” she said, summoning my college pals into bed with her. She had managed one of her signature Susan Gormley lines, even with the oxygen tube that never stayed in place across her face. She constantly fidgeted with it and kept asking the nurse if she could “take the damn thing out,” as if the oxygen tube was the problem, rather than the cancer.
The girls were Nancy, Brooks and Tippett, and although we were women, according to our 40-something calendar years, we still felt like the girls who met at DePauw University, when our greatest responsibility was figuring out which dive bar to go to on Thursday night. I remained single and childless, but I had contributed to the list of undeniably adult things like graduate degrees, weddings, children and big jobs that seemed to keep happening to the four of us. Grown-up things.
We knew Mom was sick, of course. She decided to stop treatment the month before, so we knew what was coming, just as I’d suspected what was coming when I left my job in San Francisco to move home to Ohio that November. Although she was proud of my professional success, Mom worried about the stress of my latest tech job. Her immediate acceptance of my suggestion that I take a break from my career to be with her was one of the first indicators of just how sick she was.
February morning light poured into the room from over the hillside, which was dotted with black cows whose breath made small clouds in the winter air. I knew what the crunch of the frosted grass felt like because my feet held memories of the farm, the only place I’d ever called home. I still called this room my parents’ room, even though Dad had died the year before, which was the last time the girls visited.
I sat in the window seat, closest to Mom’s side of the bed, and watched the girls climb up next to her left side. They looked as if they were playing follow the leader, one behind the next, up into the bed without a second of apprehension.
“Oh, look at you, my faves came to see me.” Mom’s usual big, curse-laden voice now sounded like faint bursts of whisper between strained breaths.
Brooks couldn’t give Mom one of her squeeze-the-air-out-of-you-hugs she’d been known for since we lived on the third floor of Mason Hall our freshman year. Brooks had somehow landed in the Indiana cornfields from Tampa, Florida, all Laura Ashley jumpers and brown curls. Her Southern manners barely concealed a bawdy sense of humor and a penchant for Bud Light back then, and now here she was, touching Mom’s shoulder as she kissed her on the cheek.
“Hi honey,” Brooks said. Mom called everyone she loved “honey,” as an honorific, we all called her the same thing in return.
Mom got to know these girls on a timeline that mirrored my own. Once I moved away from the farm, and even after college, I spoke to her every day. That was our routine. I’d give her all of the news from our first apartments in Chicago, on the various boyfriends and bad dates. Mom knew which one of us hated our job, who got a bad haircut and who was told she could only eat bagels and bananas if she wanted to stop shitting so much. Mom knew these things because I told her, and over time, the girls became hers, too.
I looked at Tippett next to Brooks on the bed. Her father died our senior year, and I wondered how being here felt for her. I remembered when she came to visit the farm over Labor Day when we were in our late 30’s. We sat down in the garden, where Mom was holding court, a glass of Chardonnay in hand.
“Tell us what it was like growing up with a father who was a professor,” Mom said. She had never met Mr. Tippett, but rather than making small talk about this recipe or that child’s activity, she created a space to talk about something that mattered. What I remember most was Tippett’s eyes lighting up in appreciation for Mom’s asking and, then, for her listening.
In the bedroom now, Mom was observing her. “Tippett, you are so beautiful — all of you girls are. Have you always been this beautiful, or have I forgotten?” Mom had never worn a stitch of makeup and always claimed that looks don’t matter, but I wondered if being so close to their youth and vibrancy felt like a spotlight on her frailty.
Still a tomboy at heart, Nancy climbed up onto the bed wearing her Saucony sneakers that looked just like the pair she was wearing the night I introduced her to her future husband, Don, a family friend. Mom was like his second mom, which added a thick layer of loyalty and love for Nancy. I saw her pat Mom’s leg and gave her a big, toothy smile with her eyebrows raised. “Susan, you know we like to be told we’re beautiful, but we’re not here to talk about us,” she said. “We just want to sit here with our best gal. Sarah has been keeping us updated, and we think this whole situation sucks.”
I swallowed hard when she called me “Sarah.” It was the first time I’d heard Nancy call me anything other than “Gorms” since freshman year. I wondered if Mom noticed. Rather than teasing Nancy about the formality, she stayed quiet and nodded with what looked like a reluctant mix of agreement and acquiescence. Mom and I had talked about how much time she might have, but watching her admit what was happening to somebody else took my breath away. The girls were now witnesses, and my heart swelled in my body while I conjured up other cherished scenes of them with Mom.
I thought about us dancing in front of the funky soul band playing “Shout” at Don and Nancy’s wedding. Mom bounded onto the floor, arms flying in the air, her white hair wet with sweat from a dance style that was more exuberance than skill. On the video from that night, you can see us watching Mom from our table at the edge of the parquet dance floor, laughing at first, then realizing it might look like we are laughing at her. Next you’d see us, one by one, jumping in right next to her, flailing our own arms in the highest form of flattery.
Mother-daughter relationships are complicated, and I’m still untangling from Mom, but the love between her and my friends was simple. Pure. As a child, I sometimes hated seeing Mom’s affection for other kids because I thought she might run out of love for me if she spread it around too much. But with the girls it was different — more like the love multiplied between us. I loved seeing her love them.
Mom’s eyes fluttered between open and closed, and I moved to sit next to her right side. I took her right hand in mine and noticed how much they looked alike, even though hers seemed smaller, childlike. I could feel her trying to tell me something. The girls were still there, the three of them on the other side of her body, like a small chorus watching Mom and me.
She reached out her other hand and gently touched my nose with her index finger. She’d never touched me this way before. At first, I thought she was saying I see you or I know you. But she was trying to make a point.
She then took the same finger and touched her own nose. In the faintest but clearest voice she said one word:
“Lucky.”
Lucky. I let the word wash over me. I wanted Mom to know I’d heard her, and I repeated back the same word. When I said it, I felt as if I was signing a contract between us.
“Lucky.”
The knowledge of what was happening — and how close we were getting to the end — could have filled this moment with profound sadness. But the word felt like an exhale — an observation that was expansive, not final. Before I could make sense of what she meant, she let go of my hand and her head sunk back further into the pillow.
“I need to shut my eyes,” she told us quietly.
The girls and I knew it was time to leave and walked out to the kitchen without saying goodbye, the way you tiptoe out of a room when a baby falls asleep.
We stood there, quiet, with the shared knowledge that something profound had just happened. We were little girls who didn’t know what to do next and women who knew exactly what to do next. But we were still us.
Nancy broke the silence. “Geezus, Gorms, you could have warned us. That was rough... good grief.”
I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Looking back, I see how Mom’s one-word declaration was about the two of us being lucky to have each other, but it was also about her certainty that the girls would keep holding me up. Their presence that morning reassured her, and I now imagine a handoff taking place, as if being able to assign me to them made it easier for her to get closer to death.
It was Saturday when we stood in the kitchen. Mom died on Monday.
Something happens in the days after such loss that suspends the order of things, as if time is holding its own breath to permit you to forget, if even for a few minutes, the very thing that happened. When I stripped the sheets from her bed, I closed my eyes and could still see the girls there with Mom.
I swear I could have felt the warmth from the imprints of their bodies.
Six years later, I consider myself even luckier for having that moment with Mom and the girls, and my appreciation for the specific, compounding relationship between grief and gratitude continues to grow.
I was the first of our friend group to lose both parents. Becoming an adult orphan is disorienting no matter how old you are, no matter how much your parents’ deaths are anticipated, no matter the natural order of things. There are four of us in the club now. That’s what we call it: The Club Nobody Wants To Belong To. As the de facto President, I purchased a navy members-only jacket that we passed along to Nancy last February when her mom died. We all flew in to be with her, of course. We keep showing up for each other, the way we always have since college. It’s what we do.
There’s a photo from that night of Nancy’s mom’s funeral. Everyone had departed except for her immediate family and us... the girls.
Other people would simply see a group of women with their arms around each other, smiling for the camera as if at a birthday party or reunion. When I look at that picture, my heart somehow expands further than it did that morning years ago, when my friends climbed into bed with Mom. I see a group of women who understand even more deeply what it means to be lucky, and how lucky we are to keep holding each other up.
Sarah Gormley’s debut memoir, “The Order of Things” is the story of how her return to the family farm to care for her dying mother changed her life in ways she never imagined possible. She owns Sarah Gormley Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, which operates from the belief that original art can be a source of joy for everyone.
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