You Were Only Waiting for this Moment to Be Free

My mother recently passed away.  It was the saddest day of my life to date.  I had the sweetest, kindest mother.   She was what people call 'a real lady'. I am not going to wax poetic about my mother in this particular blog.  I am still holding my pain close and my memories of her closer.  I did want to share just a couple of things.  

The final days of my mother's life, my father, sister and I camped at my mother's bedside.  She was comatose as this juncture, damned dementia having stolen the last bits of her from us.  We spoke to her, loved her, sang and laughed for her, and of course, cried our hearts out.  We each got to say good-bye.  I sat next to mom trying to think of something eloquent to express, what the last 49 years of my life with her meant...I was not eloquent, but surprisingly, I was able to express what my heart felt.  I will share one thing with you that I talked to her about....and it might seem trite to some, but it really meant a lot to me.  I reminded her how unhappy I was growing up with this crazy curly hair.  She knew the teasing I got a school, and how it hurt me.  I could never get a fashionable hair cut because it always morphed into an unfashionable frizz ball (my mother had perfectly straight, beautiful black hair, which turned a beautiful white as she grew older, by the way).  When I was 13 or so, my mother, every other night, would roll my thick hair on to large, pink curlers (the diameter of beer cans), and the following morning (yes, I slept in them) would blow dry my hair straight.  This was no small task.  It was labor intensive and I was a miserable, moody preteen.  While my hair was not Marcia Brady straight, the results were so much better then the small afro I had been sporting.  I do not know if I ever thanked her while we engaged in this beauty ritual every other night.  It was such a loving and unselfish effort on her part.  She wanted her daughter to not feel different, and to not suffer the teasing of cruel kids.  I never thought I was pretty while in school (mom was voted prettiest girl in her high school her senior year).  I was just a tall, curly headed, dance geek,  but she always told me that my day would come, and one day my real beauty would be seen.  She also said that my beauty was not conventional.  Anyone could be conventional.  God bless her for believing that.  So, as I sat by my dying mother, holding her hand, I thanked her for helping me to fit in better, at a time in my life when not fitting in was very painful. I also thanked her for helping me to eventually embrace what God gave me. 

When we realized that my mother's soul was soon to leave her body, we started preparing in our own way.  I wanted to pray and ask God to embrace my mother and welcome her, but instead, the prayer that came to my mind, without thinking, without hesitation, was not a prayer at all, but the Beatles' song "Blackbird".  At that most precious of moments, I saw my mother, as clear as day, as the young, black haired beauty she was in her youth.  The song resonated in my head.  It was a prayer, and as her soul ascended, the words soothed my soul too.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.

Blackbird fly Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiL5JpUtjqY