Like Flies

It seems too flippant to say, "They're dropping like flies," but that's what it feels like. When you combine the many celebrity deaths of late with Aunt Betty's passing last week and my brother's serious heart problems and near-death over the past six weeks, it feels like my world has a whirlwind of death hovering overhead.

Now my Aunt Louise is, perhaps, hours from death. My mother saw her yesterday at the nursing home where she lies, eyes open, mouth agape, staring at the ceiling. She "came to" for a while early yesterday and was able to reply to questions—not in full sentences, but with rational replies.

I have said for many, many years that I will not cry when my mother dies. Instead, I will breathe a sigh of relief. She's a good woman. She is not malicious. She treated me with emotional abuse in my early life, but I maintain that it was out of ignorance, not malice. In her own dysfunctional way, she loves me very much.

Aunt Louise, on the other hand, got me. She loved and supported and was proud of me. She treated me as if I were her daughter. I always felt the stigma of adoption with Mother, but never with Aunt Louise. With her, I could be completely unaware of our lack of blood relationship. With Mother, I was never good enough. With Aunt Louise, I was always the best—equal to her own children.

Louise said to me several times, throughout my life, that she saw the way my mother treated me and she was so sorry for that. She knew how much it hurt me, and she always sought to bolster my spirits and my feelings of self-worth.

Where I feel there will be a total lack of tears when my mother dies, I'm really fighting the tears as Aunt Louise's death nears.

And where do we go?

I firmly believe there is some sort of afterlife, some spirit world, if you will, where we go after death. I take great solace in the thought that John is cheering for me from wherever he is. I've sensed his presence several times since his death, and you'll never convince me that my belief is invalid.

It works for me. It may not work for you. We don't talk about it, but I'm pretty certain neither of my sons shares my belief. I've had Jewish friends who told me there was nothing beyond death—the body goes into the grave and that's the end of that. Adventists belief the soul is sleeping until the Second Coming of Christ, when the righteous will be raised from the grave to join Christ in the air and go to heaven. Every religion seems to have its own belief and each is adamant about its rightness.

I've said many times that we won't know until we get there, wherever there is. What if each person's belief is absolutely right—for that person? What if the Adventists are sleeping and . . . and each person is exactly where he thought he would be? Is that any more ludicrous or believable than everyone going to heaven/hell, or everyone being dead in the grave with nothing thereafter or everyone being in some sort of spirit world?

I certainly find no comfort in either being dead-in-the-grave or being sleeping-in-the-grave. I find great comfort in the thought of John playing golf with Sam Snead or Ben Hogan, or of Daddy meeting and talking to my birthmother. I dream of meeting my birthmother when I get where I'm going; I fantasize about her saying, "I did the best I could."

I guess that's the bottom line. You're born. You live, doing the best you can. And you die. And that's all we know for sure.

I'm hopeful that my children know for sure that I tried to do the best I could. And I hope they find solace in my unflagging support of and belief in them.