Farewell My Mother

Good-bye Momma

Sometimes I hated her.  Most of the time I loved her.  I never imagined I would miss her so much.  I have the urge to call and talk to her.  We have spent so long apart that even now it seems like I should just be able to pick up the phone and call her.  It's only been a week since we talked... we have gone longer than that without talking.  Surely she isn't dead.

My mom had been in the hospital for about a week.  She was feeling great, and hoping that they would let her go home soon.  Turns out she had pneumonia.  Instead of going home, she got to take a wheelchair ride across the hospital to the ICU.  She was pissed.  

The night before, I had found out that we are expecting baby three.  I am so happy that I decided to share this news with my mom.  I didn't tell anyone else. It was our little secret.  She helped me pick names: Olivia Marilyn for a girl, and Mason King for a boy.  She swears I'm having a boy :)

My mother passed away Christmas morning with her husband and my brother and I by her side.  I will never forget the look on her face in the last few moments of her life.  She was crying. Partly because she didn't want to leave us, partly because she felt guilty for leaving us on Christmas, but mostly terror.  The terror in her eyes I will never forget.

It fucking pisses me off when people tell me that she is with God now, and he took her and it's okay.  Fuck you and fuck your God.  That's what I think.  If she was 97 and passed away in her sleep, yeah okay, maybe she is with God.  God didn't give her cancer. It's something that happened as a result of outside influences (basically who the fuck knows why).  She was 47 years old. Enough of my angry rant. 

The first time I was exposed to this poem was in high school.  I understood the poem then, and I understand it now.  That's really the power of quality music/poetry.  It grows and changes with you.  It becomes more than it was before because of one's life experiences.  I will forever think of my mother when I remember this poem.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas