It Rained Today

It Rained Today

Betty Badgett

It rained today. Walking from the hospital to my car, it became hard to know if the tears running down my face were real tears or drops of rain.

I always knew that this day would come, and I wondered what I would do and how I would be able to handle it.

My mother passed today. I was at her bedside when she took a deep breath and rolled her eyes upward. I held her hand in mine and leaned down and whispered in her ear, “It’s ok to go home now, Mom. I’ll be alright.”

She never looked at me, but slowly let her eyelids close, and her hand go limp. I can’t explain the feeling of holding on to someone when they are leaving this life and entering into eternity. I stood there at the bedside for what seemed like an hour. My feet were cemented to the cold checkered tiled floor. I couldn’t move.

Nurses and doctors walked by. A feeling of loneliness swept over me, lingering on my shoulders. What’s the next step? I thought to myself. Just wanted to cry and scream and ask the world to stop turning, and make time stand still. I had just lost my mother and a part of my heart.

My mother’s nurse and doctor tried to comfort me and asked if there was anyone they could call to be with me. I don’t remember what I said. They allowed me time to sit and be with my thoughts.

Finally gathering the courage to leave, I leaned over and kissed her forehead and said goodbye. Memories came back like a flood. I saw myself at ten, and then at fourteen. I remember graduation day. I remembered coming in from school and smelling chicken frying, and cake baking in the oven. That was just yesterday—how did I get to today?

I summoned the courage that my mother had taught me and knew that although I was entitled to grieve, I had to carry on and do what only I could do.

It’s been a month since that rainy day that came and went taking with it a large chunk of my heart and my being. I’ve gone on with my life, working, being a mother and wife, stopping now and then to remember this special woman who gave birth to me and taught me life lessons that I am using and teaching the next generation.

On any particularly difficult day when my heart hurts so much, I allow those feelings to fill my soul and I cry. I cry for the little girl who misses her mother. I cry for the woman who misses her best friend and life coach. I cry for the mother I am now, who has stepped into the shoes my mother wore.

After all the hours of crying and grieving and then coming to the realization that death is something we all have to go through. This life is temporary. This is our life class, where we learn the lessons and do the homework so that one day we’ll be prepared to move on and graduate and transition into eternity. Knowing that whenever that time comes, my mother will be waiting with open arms to welcome me into the kingdom, allows me to smile and go on with life.