Women's Empowerment Stories ...

Standing in the rain
~ Gail Myers

November, 2003

I am standing in the rain. I am cold. I am wet. It has been four days since my mother has died. My mother was old, she told me she was tired. She had pneumonia. I tried to make her comfortable, I brought her home. She couldn’t swallow. I am standing in the rain. Did I let my mother die?

I meet a friend at the grocery store, I tell her, she suggests I get a life coach. I am standing in the rain.

I have a good friend who tells me my mother was old. She reminds me that even my mother said so, I feel she is angry that I am standing in the rain. I should know better.

I am standing in the rain, I am cold and wet. I see my sisters, they too are standing in the rain, we stand together, we are cold and wet but we can even laugh together. It is a relief to stand together in the rain. But we live miles apart and we must part.

After one month, I go to work. I cannot stand all day in the rain, I must think and take care of others. I take the mist to work with me. I search for my mother in the faces of my patients. I cannot find my mother. Sometimes I hold a hand, a dear old, gnarled, soft hand, and I feel my mother. I am almost happy.

I go back outside of the hospital. I stand in the rain. It is almost three months since my mother has died. My friend tells me she will not stand in the rain with me, we have choices and there is the future to think of. She suggests a forgiveness group.

I am standing in the rain. I am wet and cold. A voice inside me speaks. It speaks of rain and how rain is watering the soil of my soul and one day something will grow that wasn’t there before. I am trusting the rain. I am trusting the voice. I am missing my mother.

I am standing in the rain.

It was time

Well, Mom, I did it. I changed your room around. Two days ago, I stood in your bedroom and told you it was time, time for me to reclaim your room. You said, “Yes, Gail, it certainly is time.” Then you laughed, so did I. So yesterday, I moved the bed to another wall, cleaned all the windows. I took down the curtains and ordered new ones, sage green shades, not curtains anymore. That was pretty easy.

This morning, I had coffee and started in on your closet. What to do with the last items of your life, costume jewelry that no one had claimed, your purse, a few scarves, your slippers? What to do with the small tangled bits of your hair that I had taken from your brush, couldn’t throw it away after you died? All those metal shoe stretchers? I still couldn’t throw these few things, only things I know, away. I put them all in a bin, then to the attic, there will be another time to see them.

I cleaned the closet from top to bottom, vacuumed too. I thought about how you use to say you loved to watch people work. I had to cry some, Mom, I broke your no cry rule, Mom. I never believed in it anyway, never really did follow it. But now the room, our guest room, is fresh and clean and pretty. I kept the wallpaper, I really love yellow and lavender.

In two days, you will have been gone five years. It was time.
Love, Gail

~ Gail Myers