Mama's Last Song

I remember when she was laying in her day bed under the window in the living room, where the sun would stream in, and cast dancing shadows on the walls like a slow hypnotic dream.

Sunbeams formed a perfect halo around her full head of shocking white hair, and it literally looked like she was wearing a crown of shooting stars, as the golden hour glow kissed her skin.

She looked so radiantly beautiful.

She couldn't really speak anymore, but she sang sweetly, deeply, and intensely…

Her long, elegant fingers played the air while she crooned “life is better the second time around" over and over. On repeat, all day long; for weeks on end.

It was hard to know if she was trying to stay connected to this world through her singsong, or if she was preparing for her entrance into the next. Suspended into between two dimensions, I suppose it was both, goodbye and hello at once.

I sat for endless hours, days, and months on her peaceful little patio. This little spot of space that had become her whole world. A few lush square feet that she filled with her grace, love, plants, laughter, food, wine, and always non-stop music.

Oscar, Ella, Aretha, Tommy, Fats, Billie, they were all there! These musical guests were a constant in every home we ever had. Singing the blues and scatting with hip swinging, smooth sliding passionate joy. Over the years they had come to feel like old friends and family that just never left. There wasn’t a day that my mother didn’t listen to her jazz.

There I sat wondering, contemplating – waiting - for something to move, shift, transform.

For a sign.

I remembered how she used to call me all the time when I was living in New York City and would fretfully exclaim "everything is so still here, not a single thing moves!" and it was true.

Not a breeze, not a sound came from the cloudless never-ending blue, hot, dry California sky. The pine trees stood like wise old stoic guards, motionless and keeping secrets. The treetops hung heavy under the blazing summer sun.

Only the blue bird came to tap dance on the table in front of us and demand more bread with a loud caw and bobbing little sidewise head.

He would peck hard on the table, and it reminded me of Saul cooking and always banging on the sides of his pots. It was comforting. He was always there. All day long we had come to count on his visits. He was fearless.

Landing right in between our happy hour wine glasses, unabashedly vigorously hopping on the sides of our plates pecking at whatever he could while we sat still stifling our laughter .

Soon, from one day to the next my Mama no longer joined us outside on the patio.

The stillness was so arresting that sometimes I wondered if I was still alive... or if I was in some strange twilight zone in this perfectly manicured town with picture perfect families, that looked like they popped out of a 1950's catalog. The contrast invoked a deep unexplainable spiritual rebellion. Navigating death. Bearing witness. Holding space.

She brought me here, she gave me life, and here I am escorting her to the end of this line and to the edge of other side. Walking her to the little black bridge that she so often spoke of. "Saulius is there, sitting on a bench on the little black bridge, waiting for me", she would say every morning over coffee.

I tried to figure out next steps, but every moment was like quicksand in my mind. Every thought drained from my brain. A power so much greater than myself stepped in - pushing me like taffy through minutes, days, and months.

No real thinking that I can recall. Just listening, to the silence; and to my Mama's last song.