Connections

As the anniversary of my mother’s death draws near, I have been pondering connections between people.  We are all connected to one another in some way, shape or form.  Over time connections are built, evolve and sometimes broken.  The connections I’ve been pondering recently aren’t necessarily the physical ones so much as more ethereal ones.

I have read a couple books that speak to this connection that in some people is highly sensitive. 

In the first book, Is This Tomorrow, by Caroline Leavitt, it was a connection between a sister and a brother.  In the story, a pre-teen boy goes missing one afternoon.  His sister is close to her brother’s best friend, and in one chapter she tells him that her brother is still alive as she can feel it.  Wouldn’t she just know if he had died?  She feels the connection between them is so strong that he couldn’t possibly die and she not know it.  Later in the book we learn that the brother had, in fact, died.  His spirit passed from one plane to the next, and there was no cosmic shattering of the earth or her own spirit at that time. The event simply happened in its own quietness and no one was the wiser for many years.

I am currently reading another book, this one an audio book called The Chaperone by Laura Moriarty.  This one takes place in the early 1920’s and go through the decades.  The portion I am reading now takes place in the ‘50s and 60s and mentioned getting a “feeling” when someone passes from this world to the next.  I can’t remember the exact context, but it reminded me of the Caroline Leavitt book, at which time my thoughts were brought back around to my mother.

As I read that, I got to wondering because I have read where other people have just felt it and knew when a loved one had passed on.  What makes this connection?  Is it a sense that some people just have and they can feel when someone they are close to, or anyone, passes?  Or does it just happen when it’s someone they have an extra special or close bond with?  Or is it a sense that anyone can have but that it just happens with an extraordinary bond with someone special?

I was thinking about this, because like the sister in the first book, I had no idea when my mother died.  And she lived a scant five miles from my home.  Nor when my brother or stepfather died, for that matter, although the physical and relational distance was greater with them.  I could assume, therefore, that I don’t have that kind of sense.  But I wonder that if, God forbid, something ever happened to one of my children would I know instantly, even if we are apart?  How could that earthly bond be broken and I remain unaware until notified?

When my mother passed, she was in poor health even though considered young, and I knew that it could happen anytime.  That said, no matter how near you think death is or how much you’ve tried to prepare yourself emotionally, it still comes as such a shock.  In this world of undo, redo, rewind and back ups, it’s hard to internalize that something is irretrievably gone from your life -- forever.  I was home on January 21, 2012 with three of my children on that Martin Luther King holiday, when the police came knocking on my door.  No, actually, they pounded on the door, startling all of us still in our pajamas.  I think it was around the ten o’clock hour or a little after.

The previous day my five-year-old had dialed 9-1-1 as a lark, so I thought they had come to follow up.  I opened the door and two officers came in.  One was very nervous and later I felt bad for him; a new officer delivering bad news – maybe his first bereavement notification.  As they stood there, with the veteran officer encouraging the newer one to speak up, my heart dropped.  It became all too clear this was not a follow up visit but that something dreadful had happened.  I suddenly feared something had happened to my husband.  It was a decidedly awkward moment as I stood there waiting -- in my pajamas, hair uncombed, teeth not brushed, in front of strangers -- and in my head I screamed “JUST TELL ME WHAT IT IS!”  But it was actually my mother, and the pain and the relief mingled together so tightly the feelings remain intertwined to this day. 

She had collapsed at her apartment building down the hall from her apartment.  Someone found her and called for help.  It's unclear how long she lay there before someone found her.  I don’t know if she died right there on the floor where she was found, in the ambulance on the way to the hospital or at the hospital where she had a DNR order.  The police actually didn’t have much information but stayed until my husband came home.  At this point, a lot of people say everything was a blur but not for me.  I still remember most of the details of that morning.  What I was wearing. Telling the girls to stay upstairs, even though they clearly knew something was going on and it wasn’t fun.  The phone call the police made on my behalf to my husband. The Grassroots crisis woman who came and tried to offer help.  My beautiful friend down the street who dropped everything and came over.  It’s all very clear, still.

What I also remember is looking at the clock and thinking back to what I was doing at “that” time.  I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary.  I don’t recall looking at the clock when she supposedly passed and thinking anything out of the ordinary was happening.  I recalled the TV show we were watching. I recalled who was awake and who was still asleep and what each girl was doing.   Nothing felt broken or out of sorts.  In fact I was blissfully unaware that there was anything amiss.  How strange not to know when my physical connection to this earth was broken.  My reason for being, the person who carried me for ten months and pushed me into this world was no longer in it.  Isn’t that reason enough for me to feel something cataclysmic or have a sense that the world just tipped on its axis? 

It’s so black and white to think you can die and no one would even know until you are found.  It seems something should happen.  Someone should notice or feel or wonder what’s missing at that moment when you take your last breath.  Just one person.  But as when you are born, the only people who notice are the ones that are actually there.  It’s a small quiet moment, when you breathe your last, where only those present are in the know. 

So, going back to the connection.  What is it that some people have when they know something happens?  Can a person “make” it happen or is it just something inherently inside them?  Do I need to do something to create a bond SO strong with the people I love that I just KNOW when it is broken?  That it’s an earth-shattering moment on some plane even if we are apart? I am reminded of the tree analogy.  If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  My mother’s death had absolutely no impact on my life until I was notified.  Then the pain and grief began.  I did not have a close, intimate relationship with my mother, although, I did love her.  I was glad to have been able to spend the three months with her and do the things I could to help her in what would turn out to be her last weeks.   

Martin Luther King Day will always be associated with her memories now.  My kids, while in the local public school, will always have a school holiday.  This first anniversary falls on a Tuesday, while the children’s school holiday is a Monday.  By some weird coincidence, the 21^st is also a school holiday, and I will most likely be home with my children.  Even though I did not have a clue at her moment of passing, I will be thinking of her that Tuesday coming up and remembering the previous January 21.  I will also be working on strengthening the bond with my children.  It may not change my “intuitions,” but it will certainly change the relationships I have with those I hold dear in a positive way.  And that, I think, is the most important connection of all.