Her Hospital Bed is Gone

Sandy Martinez Laczyński and her mom were active members of Haley Chapel UMC (Bluff City, IL) when I was fresh out of seminary. She wrote the following this summer, and it’s with her graciously expressed permission that I share it with you —

I miss her.

I was in her room earlier gathering linens from her bed that needed to be washed.

The hospital bed is gone. The bed side table and O2 have all been taken away . Its pretty empty. We put her lift chair in the living room and threw out Daves chair and mine because they were awful.

So I have moms old rocker recliner and Dave has the lift chair.

I have not gone threw her stuff. I am not ready for that yet.

As I was getting the linens , a wooden picture her friend Marilyn made for us fell over onto the floor. It was leaning against a wooden nesting box that I have. There was no way it just fell . No dogs , no wind , I was 5 ft from it. So I talked to her for a min.

Her favorite room. Her little home. She loved her room. She would come out and sit with me in the living room and eat with us but she loved her space.

She asked me once.

What will you do with my room when I am gone?

I was dumb founded.

I don’t know Mom. I haven’t thought about that. I don’t want to.

I wanted her here longer.

To be bossing me around so I would go crazy , longer.

To get up at night and see her You tube dog grooming playing on her TV.

To hear her sneaking into the kitchen and eating snacks. Lol.

To hear her say

I like the regular chips, mashed potatoes or whatever it was I was trying to get her to try a gourmet or fancied up version of.

It got to be a joke and she would laugh about it. Haha

To kiss her good night and tell her I loved her and I’ll be back in at 1.

To wake her up and say well good morning Sleeping beauty. You gonna sleep all day ?

Hoe about some coffee??

The worst part ? Losing her.

Is when I am driving somewhere. I always called my Mom.

I almost called her today .

If I see something funny, I almost sent it to her.

Thats the hard part. The part no one talks about. The late night silence that hits your gut and the guilt . Did I do enough? Did she really know how much I love her? How much this kills me to see her this way? Does she know that I loved her with my heart and soul and that I was not done learning from her yet?

Did she know that on days that I was grouchy and seemed like a huge hag that I was stressed out and my anxiety was at an all time high? The fear of losing her made me seem in caring and aloof because I was freaking out on the inside and had to hold it together on the outside.

I hope she knows now.

I hope she can see how much I tried to keep her comfortable and dry.

How I tried so hard to keep her skin from breaking down and how I tried to keep her lotioned up and clean .

Mom I did my best. I hope you know that .