And Still

I have a very difficult time believing it's been six years since my mother died. 

I first offered what follows in the hours after her death and I offer it again today because I have never come up with anything better to say about a life well-loved such as hers.

I knew my mother, Joan Marie (Kelly) Kenny, every day of my life. She died after being briefly hospitalized for an infection in an artificial heart valve that slowly overwhelmed her body.

Sigrid took this picture when Mom came to visit us in Germany in 1989.
We are in Sigrid's parent's living room and appear to be discussing how much we
should have tipped our hairdresser.

Through the miracle of technology, I was able to speak to her on a phone held to her ear while I said goodbye if by goodbye I'm allowed to include sobbing uncontrollably while apologizing for crying and being comforted by the woman who gave birth to me and my brothers and sisters.  

Mom died very much as she lived, with quiet determination on her own terms and with her eyes wide open, rarely blinking because she knew losing sight of where the bastards of this planet are, even for a moment, could be catastrophic. There was nothing she would not and could not do for her children as I know all too well.

There was, in the end, too little, I, as her oldest could do for her. Kara, my sister who was with her in the hospital, told me Mom's heart was slowing down and she was sleeping more than she was awake so I was grateful she was awake when I called so she could hear me tell her how much I loved her one last time in this life.

Even then, Mom had her toes in the sand

Mom believed in heaven and I have no doubt that after her sometimes hellish almost nine decades here on earth that is where she is. Mitch Albom wrote, "When death takes your mother, it steals that word forever." 

The only solace I take from that is forever is only the length of my life and no longer.
-bill kenny