All Things Must Pass

Seven years ago today was the happiest and saddest day of my life. 

Happy because our son, Patrick Michael, and his life's love, Jena, announced their engagement. As my wife and I were leaving our home in the early afternoon to attend their engagement party, one of my sisters and then one of my brothers texted me that our Mom was hospitalized near her home in Florida and was not expected to survive the day. 

I wrote what follows after she passed that afternoon seven years ago leaving a hole in my heart that will never heal. 

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

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 were, 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.

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 can find in that thought is that forever is only my lifetime and no longer.
-bill kenny