Okay

My brother Rob called me at work a few minutes before noon on Thursday. It was a phone call I knew was coming very soon, but even the shock you think you've prepared yourself to expect remains a shock when it finally arrives. It was time to say goodbye to Mom.

It's a twenty-minute drive from work to Mom's nursing home. I made it in about thirteen. She had passed by the time I arrived. Nonetheless, I sat beside her, and told her a story I had just remembered while racing to get there:

Okay.

It was a summer in the early '70s. I was, I don't know, 11 or 12 or 13, whenever it was. Summers usually meant trips to Missouri with Mom, visiting her parents, my grandparents. We had traveled by train and by plane in previous years, but our trips in the '70s were made via Greyhound. Take the bus and leave the driving to us! Okay.

On this particular early '70s journey, there was an Amish couple on the bus. The woman looked at Mom and I, and she told Mom that we both had such nice smiles. I don't remember smiling much on the bus, but I must have smiled just enough to make an impression. I returned my attention to my Green Lantern comic book.

As day became night, little adolescent me decided I'd be more comfortable stretching out in a pair of empty seats, so I separated from Mom to do just that. Independence! I don't know that Mom was all that keen on the idea, but she accepted it.

The Amish woman sensed Mom's concern. And she told Mom, "I know you're worried about him. But he'll be okay."

And I was.

On Thursday afternoon, as I finished telling her that story, I leaned in closer to Mom. I knew she wasn't really there anymore, but I told myself she could still hear me. Somewhere. And I told her, "I was okay, Mom. You'll be okay, too."

Later on, back at home, some words I wrote when Dad passed in 2012 also came to mind:

We will not wish for more days; there are no more days to be granted to us. The memory of the days we had must sustain us. And sustain us they will.

I love you, Mom. It's okay. It has to be.