And her mother hugged her and she began to cry. Her mother, as she had done ten thousand times in their 41 years together hugged her daughter harder and whispered words of love and comfort. That’s what mothers do. Its their job. Its what they do best. Except this time, the words of comfort were empty and devoid of meaning.

How do you comfort a child who is dying?

What can you say to ease their pain? Words are not only inadequate, they’re superfluous. Words at a time like this are an insult to the soul of the soon to be departed. So she hugs her daughter tightly, silently railing against the inability of her words to have the desired effect of easing the passage of her child who, balanced now on the edge of life and death, will soon drift away into the great and glorious unknowable.

She doesn’t want to let go. Perhaps a rush of memory causes her eyes to mist over as she recalls her daughter’s first steps, her first communion (her last communion being inexplicably denied her by a lawyer who sees a human being starving to death as “peaceful” and “comfortable”), her first date. Perhaps she sees the beautiful young woman smiling as she walked down the aisle at her wedding or the more mature, pensive adult who, until her heart stopped mysteriously that horrible day, was a friend, a confidante, a blessing.

She looks into her daughter’s eyes and sees…what? Does she see recognition, a spark of human awareness, a flicker of life? She says she does. She’s got 41 years of experience looking into those eyes. She knows what she sees. Why won’t anyone listen to her?

The doctors, the medical gods with all of their instruments, and charts, and diagnoses, have looked at her daughter and walked away shaking their heads. She’s gone, they tell her, let her go.

The doctors mean well. They’ve been, for the most part, kind and considerate of her feelings. She knows that their years of training and experience have given them the expertise to treat her daughter’s body.

But they don’t know her daughter. Were they there when she fell off her bike and needed the special care that only a mother could give; care that no doctor, no medicine, no balm could possibly duplicate? Were they there when she lost her first love and needed to be in that special hollow between a mother’s breast and shoulder where all troubles, all pain seems to vanish as if a fairy waved a magic wand and made the world right again?

She sees her daughter’s sunken eyes. She hears the labored breathing and knows it won’t be long now. The day, the hour, the moment is approaching when whatever germ of humanity was left in her daughter will soon be gone and all she’ll have left is memory. She tries to push this out of her mind but still, it intrudes on her thoughts and jars her senses as she realizes a great part of her life-being a mother to a daughter-will soon be at an end.

Does she hug her daughter tighter at the thought? Is she bereft of hope that her own life will have meaning and purpose? Surely she has a loving husband and son who will do their best to comfort and console her through her grief. But do even they understand the hole in her soul her daughter’s death will leave?

She doesn’t care about courts and judges and such anymore. She doesn’t listen as politicians pontificate and others who care less about her daughter than they do their own personal and political agendas scream at each other and accuse each other and rant against each other in an inexplicable spectacle of emotion tinged with fear and hatred. She doesn’t hear it. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t want to think about that now.

All she wants to do is hold her crying daughter and tell her there, there, it will be alright. Soon you’ll be with Him. Soon the glorious light of eternal mind will wrap you in its arms and you will know the indescribable and wondrous feeling of eternal peace. And you will be comforted.

And her mother hugged her and she stopped crying.

Cross-Posted at Rightwing Nuthouse

Said Rick Moran @ 12:01 pm | Permalink   

1. Superhawk, your Pieta for this Mary, carved and polished with loving words, cries out in loud wet tears the Passion of Theresa.

   Comment by The MaryHunter — 3/27/2005 @ 12:12 pm

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2. Heart breaking! Simply beautiful post!

   Comment by Jay — 3/27/2005 @ 2:15 pm

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3. Yes What About Those Subpoenas?

   Trackback by Crystal Clear — 3/27/2005 @ 6:04 pm

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4. We were just talking about Terri today during lunch and i feel like i am the only one who cares about this woman. I am a mother and maybe that is the reason why i feel that the parents should be allowed to decide in this case. You post is so wonderful and i would love to share it with my co-workers unfortunately, they don’t feel the same way we do.

   Comment by alina — 3/28/2005 @ 5:36 pm

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5. A husband would do that too if he really loved his wife.

   Comment by Ticklebug — 3/28/2005 @ 8:32 pm

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