The last two years of my life have been particularly difficult. I lost my mother to complications from diabetes and although I have tried to pretend that everything is fine, it is not. I will never get over the fact that I will never see my mother again. His death was the biggest nightmare of my childhood and it came true on December 6, 2006 at 4:45 pm. I was on my way to the hospital from work to visit her when I received a call on my cell phone, informing me that my mother had passed away. Such a cold and clinical way of telling someone that their mother was dead as if she were simply a specimen to be studied.
I remember crying silently on the bus and people looking at me like I was a crazy individual. I wanted to scream, “My mom is dead, dead, dead!” but of course I didn’t. As usual, I kept my pain and my thoughts to myself. I got off the bus and walked slowly across the street on my way to the hospital. It was a cold and gloomy afternoon, there was snow everywhere and my mother was dead. I remember calling the father of my children and telling him that my mother was dead. I remember calling my oldest daughter and telling her that her grandmother was dead, the lady who helped raise her, who taught her to read, love and much more.
I remember walking into the Michael Reese Hospital lobby and being told by the friendly security guard to check in. I remember getting into the elevator on my way to the tenth floor and getting off. I remember the blank looks on the faces of the nurses in their apartment, wondering if they knew my mom was dead. I remember going into her room and seeing her lying in bed with her eyes closed and her mouth open, as if she were asleep, as she always slept. But she was not asleep; she was dead, dead, dead. I remember touching it and noticing that it was still warm and knowing that it would soon be cold and stiff. I remember walking out of the room and talking to the doctor and passively listening to his explanation about my mother’s death and asking him for a place to calm down and think. I remember calling my boss to inform her that my mother was dead and I did not know when she would return. I remember calling various family and friends to talk, cry, and hang up the phone.
Memories of my childhood flooded my brain. From going to work with her during the summer when she wasn’t in school. Shopping with her on State Street to buy school clothes, Easter clothes, books and toys. Meeting her at the bus stop when she was leaving work on hot summer days. To go with her to the Clock, a nightclub in the neighborhood on Saturday afternoons and drink orange juice while having a Millers soda.
Memories of her when I was in the hospital with my oldest son and my mother yelling at the doctors, telling them that she was in pain and that they should hurry up and do something. Of being snuggled next to her listening to ghost stories and places her mother had told her when she was a child living in Itta Bena, Mississippi. Remembering how hard she worked as a poor, single mother, making sure I never missed a school trip or was hungry. From the time she was in the hospital with the same illness that finally took her two weeks before Christmas in 1978 and how she made Christmas happen for a little girl who was so afraid her mother would die and never see her again. see and marvel at it. her strength. Hoping to become a tenth of the woman I was. Rest in peace Mrs. Gertrude Allen Henry. Although I will never forget you, I will always have my memories.