Greeson: Birthday becomes a day for saying goodbye

Jay Greeson
Jay Greeson

The first image of my 46th birthday was watching the kind gentlemen from the funeral home wheel my mother from her home.

It was about 12:10 Monday morning. My mother, who had battled brain cancer for 15 months, had been dead less than three hours.

photo Jay Greeson

My father mentioned when she died on Sunday evening was about the same time in 1970 that they headed to the hospital to welcome me into the world.

Sometimes the circle of life is a roundhouse kick to the gut.

"She was playing in a bridge tournament and her water broke," my father said, standing at her bedside with the last tears his body could summon before pausing to finish the story.

"She finished the hand and then came home and we went to the hospital."

That's how she was. Committed. Driven. Loyal - I can almost hear her saying, "I couldn't leave my partner," even now.

And she's gone.

That happens to all of us, something that has become an all-too-pat answer for me when happy birthday wishes are granted.

"Another year older, huh?" a good work friend asked Monday.

"Yep, better than the alternative," I said, almost reflectively.

And it's true. Except when it's not.

Don't get me wrong. I will miss my mother. Terribly.

There is a small collection of singular things in this life, no matter how lucky or smart or anything else you might be.

You have only one soul, so you must nurture it and guide it to a place where you are content.

You have only one life, so living it rather than existing in it may be the best advice you can get.

That life, of course, comes from the one mother we have.

She gives us life, kisses our boo-boos, tells us we're great when we think we're terrible and blesses us with a love that only mothers know. It's an unconditional and forever embrace.

I will miss her laugh and her wit. She was funny, and she gave as much - if not more - than she got.

I will miss her kindness. She was a pied piper with children at church or the ballpark or everywhere in between, because, more than anyone I've known, she treated everyone with the same genuineness, be they a congressman or a kindergartener. (The Starbursts she kept in her pocket didn't hurt either.)

Most of all I will miss her grateful and giving spirit. She was easily the most generous person I've ever known.

I will not miss, however, watching her suffer, the cancer winning daily and wreaking havoc in ways that make you believe in the power of the human will and in awe of the power of the disease.

She was gone long before Sunday night, and moving to the next phase was better for all of us, including her.

Yes, we cried, and yes we are heartbroken.

But I am also thankful that she knows no more pain.

And I'm thankful for the wonderful gifts she gave me, in spirit and in life, that I know I can never repay to her but will try to relay to my kids.

Monday was my birthday. It, like every other day, should be Mother's Day.

Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6343.

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