Free At Last

photo credit: whiskeyandtears

This morn­ing, the day after my mother died, I got up early to go for a morn­ing walk. It was a beau­ti­ful, sunny fall morn­ing, crisp and clear, the trees decked out in their Octo­ber col­ors of bright orange and red. I walked along with my ipod in my pocket play­ing Joan Osborne songs in my ears.

I felt elated. The heav­i­ness that goes with watch­ing some­one you love decline and die inch by inch, day after day, was gone now. It had lifted and in its place was only relief. She was finally free.

I walked over to the local park where there is a run­ning track and play­ground and began to walk around the track at a fast clip, feel­ing good. There were a cou­ple of older women already walk­ing — one about the size and shape of my mother. I thought about how long it had been since I’d seen my mother move with­out some­one or some­thing to hold onto. “Good for them for being out here!” I thought, as I passed them on the track.

My body was rev­el­ing in being out in the open air. I was full of energy and life. I began to wave my arms in time to the music and take jog­ging dance steps. My body wanted to boo­gie and I let it have its way. I began to sing along with the song that goes, “I dreamed about Ray Charles last night and in my dream he could see just fine …” I was really boo­gieing now. I danced my way to the swing set and climbed on one that was sta­tioned high off the ground. I began to swing­ing high, lean­ing full into it and pump­ing my legs to make it go higher and faster.

I noticed I had attracted the atten­tion of the two older ladies and I imag­ined them ask­ing, “Why are you act­ing like that?” I men­tally responded with the words, “Because I CAN!” and then I heard my mother laugh.

I always loved my moth­ers laugh. It was infec­tious. Her laugh­ter would bub­ble up from down deep and roll out in sweet peals of heart-felt joy. I would pur­posely do or say things in the hopes of bring­ing her laugh­ter — I loved hear­ing it that much. What a great sound, her laugh — one indeli­bly engraved on my heart and in my mem­ory. I heard it now — the full res­o­nant joy of it. I started laugh­ing out loud in response.

It had been years since my mother had been phys­i­cally fit enough to enjoy walk­ing, danc­ing, jog­ging. I’d long ago let go of my desire for her to join me on hikes and long walks. But now, sud­denly, it occurred to me that she was finally able to move freely, to dance, to run, to jump and twirl about! I dropped my head way back as I con­tin­ued to swing, wrapped my legs around the swing-chains and hung upside down the way I’d done so often as a child. Now I had an upside down view of the won­der­ful day, full of fall col­ors and blue-blue skies and I laughed again. Undo­ing myself on the swing, I leaped from it, land­ing on my feet, and started danc­ing anew.

It was as if my mother and I were one, her rev­el­ing through me, in her new found free­dom; she was being given the chance to move about in a pain-free, agile body. We danced, we ran, we lept and whirled — my pre­cious mama and me. This is how I know she still lives. She lives and will con­tinue to live in (and even through) me. She is free and we are together again.

Such is the res­ur­rec­tion that fol­lows the lib­er­a­tion of death. Halleluiah!

Bless­ings,