Last Week with my Mother
by Wil Bosbyshell
I didn't know this would be my last visit with my mother. I
didn’t get an announcement that she would die the next week. My mother was 90
years old when I spent four days with her holy week before Easter in 2024. She
had lived so long, I felt she was immortal. My heart hurts.
We went and did so many things. We visited the Dali Museum, the
James Museum, the liquor store, the farmer’s market, the Spanish market and the
Shrimp Store. The owner of the Spanish market hugged her like she was his
mother. We went out for lunch to the place she said had the best people
watching, “Bill Mize says everyone here is a hipster. Not that I know what a
hipster is,” she said laughing. Mama just loved people watching.
I didn't rehang every painting in her apartment, but I
rehung about fifteen different paintings or photos. We rearranged her display
in the hallway and her refrigerator magnets. We visited a man who had a 1960s
space program collection.
She used a walker, but still drove, and nothing stopped her.
She was feeling her age and said so. We worked on her scrapbooks,
and she said, “Why am I even keeping a scrapbook. I'm going to die soon.”
“No, you're not! We are working on your scrapbook,” I scolded
her.
My family celebrated her 90th birthday with a big party just
eight months before. So, we put those photos and cards in her scrapbook. “Can
you believe I'm 90 almost 91? It's hard to believe, even for me,” she mused.
“Hell, Mama, I can’t believe I’m 63.”
The summer before we invited 100 folks to her birthday party
thinking 35 to 50 people would accept the invitation. Over 90 people responded
yes, and two people crashed the party who were not invited. My mother changed
her name to Carrie for her grandchildren. I even started to think of her as
Carrie occasionally.
At Christmas my son made a huge effort so his girlfriend Ember
met his grandmother, Carrie. It turned out to a very important visit. Allen and
Ember got engaged the following February on Tybee Island.
Mama and I watched murder mysteries on TV and had a
conference call with one of her financial advisors.
When I said goodbye, “I love you, Mama.” She cried as she
responded, she had done that for about four years now. “I love you too,
William.”
My mother was everyone’s friend and very sociable. There was
always a pitcher of sweet, iced tea sitting on the kitchen counter ready for me
and my friends after school.
Of my parents my mother was the practical one. When I joined
a fraternity at college, I wrote a letter home to inform my parents. I received
two letters in return. My father’s letter informed me that I had joined his
fraternity: Phi Kappa Psi. He wrote, “High, High, High, we’ll pay for
everything.” My mother’s letter told me I could pay the dues out of my ROTC
money.
My mother was one of the secretaries for Jack Bogle, the
founder of the Vanguard mutual fund company. She taught me to invest when I was
in my 20s. She signed me up for the Kiplinger letter and sent me money to
invest. I am financially secure in retirement because of her.
As a freshman in college, I received a letter from my mother
every day. Every. Single. Day. The number of letters decreased to several a
week for the rest of her life. I was always William to her, never Wil. My
father told me that she had cried the entire two-day trip home after dropping
me off at college. An old joke goes like this. If you ask anyone if their parents
had a favorite child and they reply, “No.” That means they are the favorite.
She was always thinking about me and my future. “Willliam, I
had the secretary from Edwin Thomas and the dinning table from Lilla Bosbyshell
re-finished for your new house.”
The night she died she had written one of her genealogy
friends a nine-paragraph e-mail. Later, she had a massive stroke as she stood
by her bed. In the hospital the next weekend she was severely paralyzed. She
couldn't talk. Her eyes were open, but they didn’t follow you when you moved
around the room. Her expression was mostly blank. She couldn’t talk.
I stayed with her one night in the hospital. I read aloud
from the Wizard of Oz, one of her favorite books and movies. For years I had
given her presents related to the Wizard of Oz: Christmas Tree ornaments,
magnets and stuffed dolls. She even had a framed photo of the yellow brick road
from the Land of Oz on Beech Mountain, NC.
In the morning, I woke and went to the window opening the
blind allowing the Florida sun to shine into her hospital room. The beam of sunlight
landed on my mother’s face, and she woke up. Moving to her bedside I said, “Good
morning, Mama, it's your son, William.”
She looked up at me and for a moment she was herself again: happy
and clear-eyed. Her whole face brightened as death fell away. She smiled at me
with the expressive eyes I had known my whole life. Then she was gone again.
Her body lived another two weeks. My sisters say she waited
for me to be with her to die. Her favorite son.
Sitting at her bedside, holding her hand I said, “Your to-do
list is done. There is nothing left for you to teach or do for me or my
sisters. You can go. You lived a good life. You did everything you needed to do
for all your friends and everyone you loved.
Goodbye Mama. You were a wonderful mother. You couldn't have
done any more for me than you did. I love you."
She died the next morning.
