The Birthday Gift

It was my birthday. As I left work at my school and started to drive home, I thought of how different my birthdays used to be. When my kids were young and my parents were still alive we’d get together at my folks’ house. We’d share a delicious meal that my mom had prepared, followed by a homemade chocolate cake. I missed all of that–and I especially missed my Mama, even though I was turning 60 years old.

So very much had changed in my life, and we were coming up on the fourth anniversary of my mother’s death.

The moment I thought that thought, it was suddenly the night of Wednesday, November 28, 2012.

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I was an “observer.” I could see myself sitting by my mom’s hospital bed, with “Claire de Lune” softly playing on my laptop. I was also listening to the “death rattle” coming from the frail figure on the bed, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before my mom died.

From my vantage point–somewhat “behind” myself–the head of the bed was to my left, against a wall. I knew I was somehow “watching” this and not actually “re-living” it—and that seemed to be an important distinction.

I became aware of another “room,” just beyond–or through–the wall to my left. Except it wasn’t really a room or a hallway. There really wasn’t a wall there, either…. What I saw was a different “scene” entirely, and it looked very much like the kitchen at our family’s former homeplace. But then I was surprised to see my mom’s sister and two of her brothers in this “room.”

My mom was one of seven children, and she was the last surviving sibling in her family. Her older sister, Alma, passed away in 2001, and she was in this room. Her younger brother, Howard, was also there; he had died in 2005. Her older brother, “Buster,” was also–inexplicably–in our homeplace’s kitchen that was somehow adjacent to a modern hospital room…. Buster had died about a year before. If other family members were there, I didn’t see them.

As if the volume in the room was slowly being turned up, I began to hear what my mom’s siblings were saying:

“Ruth just needs to get her ass over here! Maybe I’ll go get her,” Howard said. He sounded excited, and he was just beaming.

Alma laughed, looked at Howard, and said, “You know you can’t do that! She’ll come when she’s ready.”

Buster grinned and said, “Well, she DID say she wanted me to hold her hand. So while I’ve got hold of that hand, Howard you can hold the other, and we’ll just give her a little pull!”

They continued to joke about this, saying that they’d better not hurry along the process. If it wasn’t their feisty sister’s idea, she would NOT be happy about it!

There was so much laughter and talking! They were impatient about having to wait, and the atmosphere in this space was crackling with their anticipation.

At some point I heard Alma say something about me, knowing that I was sad, but also knowing that I “knew” that everything would be okay.

My focus shifted back to the hospital room, and I saw the kind nurse come into the room to check on us and ask me if I wanted her to stay. I watched myself say, “Yes” (as I had almost four years before), and the two of us sat together by the bed. I was still aware of the chatter in the other room, but I couldn’t hear everything they were saying; they weren’t talking to me but to each other.

The pauses between my mom’s breaths became longer. At one point I heard myself ask the nurse if she was gone. And again–as I had seen almost four years before–she checked with the stethoscope and said, “No,” but added that it wouldn’t be long. We continued to wait.

And then, the next breath didn’t come, and I (again) watched my mother’s face relax and become radiant….

The nurse gently put the stethoscope against her chest and said that she had passed. It was a little before 11:00 pm. “Claire de Lune” was still playing softly on my laptop, and a full moon was rising in the eastern sky.

The nurse asked if I wanted to just sit with her by myself for a while, and when I said that I did, she left the room.

As I watched myself sitting there beside my mom’s body in the hospital bed, I saw myself crying, but I remembered that I had also marveled at how beautiful she appeared. I then realized that my mother was standing, with her hand against the “wall” at the head of the bed. She made direct eye contact with my observer-self and looked at me with incredible sadness–and infinite love. With her right hand outstretched, she pushed through into the other “room.”

I immediately heard Howard “whoop” and exclaim, “We thought you’d never get here!” My mom and her siblings were all talking at once, hugging, kissing, and laughing. It was a joyful reunion.

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I don’t cry easily or often, but I found that I was absolutely wailing! And I was in my car. At a stoplight. Waiting to cross a major road before continuing on to my house.

What the hell had just happened? Had I been dreaming–while I was driving?

I remembered nothing of the drive between my school and the intersection, a distance of about three and a half miles that usually took about six or seven minutes.

Still sobbing, I drove another mile or so, then turned into my neighborhood. As I did, I suddenly–and clearly–heard my mom’s voice in my head. This is what she said:

“And that’s what it was like.
I wanted you to see it.
Happy birthday, honey!”

© SKB 2023