Talks Under the Tiki Hut

What Do I Believe?


It was Good Friday. I was at home with my two-year old daughter, Dennine. We were waiting for my parents to arrive as my mother wanted to take Dennine shopping for her Easter hat. This would only be the second year that Dennine benefited from our yearly traditional search for the perfect Easter hat. I had enjoyed this tradition for years and now I could see the tradition carry on.

My Mother was so in love with her youngest little granddaughter. It had taken six years for me to conceive and when I finally did, mother was ecstatic! We anxiously waited for them. That’s when the call came— “Your mother has suffered a heart attack and is in the hospital.” No, that’s not possible!

My Mother worked in a dress factory where the production line was quite intense and stressful. I had just asked her that week why she was working on Friday as she had recently retired. She replied, “They need me.”

Evidently, the younger women could not keep up with the required pace of the assembly line and my mother became very agitated. She was not feeling well so they drove her home—home to my parents’ third floor apartment. After trekking up the multiple flights of steps, she predictably felt worse, and my father called an ambulance to rush her to the hospital.

As we raced to the hospital, I was in complete denial. (It’s not a heart attack. She probably fell and just broke a bone.) To my recollection, my mother had never been sick, never been in a hospital. She was a five-foot, four-inch bundle of energy and vitality. Always working, at the factory and at home.

She was so appreciative and impressed by the simplest things. Although my parents never owned a home, my mother decorated their apartment with minimal funds to look like Better Homes and Gardens. She was so talented and creative.

To me she was immortal—so strong and healthy! Surely, she would be with us forever. The fear of our own mortality began to take on a reality and gripped my heart.

Upon arriving at the emergency room, we found Mother sitting up in the hospital bed and complaining that she was starving because they hadn’t fed her lunch. People who know me, will now think, “That’s who Bev gets her appetite from!”

The doctors reported that my mother had experienced the mildest form of heart attack. There appeared to be little damage to her heart. However, they recommended that she be admitted and stay for three days for observation. Our local hospital had just launched a brand-new heart care unit complete with all the latest technology. We left feeling confident that she would receive the best of care.

The next day, Saturday, she was allowed two visitors at a time every six hours. My teenage niece had a great fear of hospitals so I offered to have her join me. As we entered the room, the first thing that caught my eye was a little picture of Dennine Scotch taped to the wall directly across from her bed. Mother was in great spirits and the visit was jovial and light-hearted. As we left, I turned back toward her, and our eyes met. That would be the last time I would see her. I always regret that I didn’t have alone time with her. I wished I could have told her just one more time how great a mother she was and how much I loved her (and still do).

Early Sunday morning, Easter Sunday, about 4:00 a.m. my sister called and said that she heard from the hospital and Mother had taken a “turn for the worse.” I still wonder if that’s what they tell you to prepare you for the next message—the worst news you will ever receive. As I hurried to get dressed, the phone rang again— “don’t come, Mother has died.” My knees buckled as I dropped to the floor in shock and disbelief.

I had never lost someone I loved and to whom I was so close. The thought of never seeing her again, never hearing her voice, her laugh, her never seeing Dennine grow up. There would be no more Easter hats.

Waves of grief overcame me quite often. Like a tsunami, I would be overwhelmed with unexpected and sudden waves of grief. There really should be a better, more descriptive word than grief—it seems so weak and shallow. Even now, so many years later, as I write this, the tsunami returns to spill its tears and torment my soul.

The waves of grief would come back again and again over the years, but as time passed, the intervals between the visits would increase. I can say that the waves of grief subside but never cease.

I vaguely remember the viewing—so many people who knew and loved her. Many people with whom she worked thought that she was in her fifties. My mother never shared her age. As my sister and I met with the funeral director, he asked, “How old is your mother?” My sister and I looked shocked and wide-eyed turning toward each other, we simultaneously answered, “We can’t tell you that—Mother would kill us!” It was the comic relief moment. Mother’s tombstone bears only the date of her death.

My moment of truth came at the funeral Mass. It had been quite a while since I attended Mass. Was it really necessary?


Life Lesson

I remembered back when my mother was grieving her mother’s death. When she had told me about God and heaven and eternity…forever and ever and ever…Where was she? Would I see her again? I know what she believed, BUT WHAT DO I BELIEVE? It was a faith defining moment. Either I believed or I didn’t. I chose to believe!