by Tara Allan Stewart

Created on: September 05, 2008   Last Updated: September 17, 2008

SARAH'S STORY

My husband and I took Sarah to the doctor, and when I saw her ex-rays, I knew that cancer had ravished her body. She was on no medication, never went to the doctor, and she was telling me that she was dying of lung cancer. Sarah was my mother, ever beautiful and ever loving.

She had been living with cancer for some time, but at end stage lung cancer, she was ready to die, and on her own term, and in her own home, with family hospice care. I was that family, with my father's love and guidance, although he often was confused and too blind to read medicine bottles.

Somehow, from somewhere, I found the courage to help my mother through her cancer diagnosis. After years of her holding onto my life, often with her very teeth, she was letting go of her own life. She told me she was tired, did not want to go through any painful procedures, and she looked at me with a steel-eyed look only she had and told me she wanted to die at home. I would make that last wish come true.

At first, she let a nurse's assistant bathe her. As this became more tiring for her, the job became mine. I gently washed her, remembering her own ministrations toward me when I was a child. She shared with me when Job and his assistant visited her, and I never doubted her. She laughed the day she fell and I was not strong enough to lift her, so I sat on the floor with her, laughing and singing until someone came home to help her back into bed, unhurt. She was thrilled when I cut up leftover steak, tender, from the best restaurant in town, and heated it gently in butter for her. She ate it right from my fingers, smiling and remarking about what good stuff it was. She was light as a feather.

Her last day I spent singing to her. Dad said, "She always loved to hear you sing." She chirped in with, "I still do, so hush and let me listen!"

A few nights later, Dad called me into their bedroom, unsure of what was happening. Her breathing was labored, and I wiped foam from her mouth with her fingers. Death rattle. I told her to let go, to fly like an eagle. "What about you?" "I'm only a hawk. I can't fly as high as you." "Okay. Where do I go?" I talked her through, taking her higher, to be with her son, her mother and father, brothers and sisters. She fell into a coma, and very soon, she took her last breath.

The nurse who came in at the end was amazed to find my mother clean and wearing her favorite red silk pajamas. "She knew?" I wasn't aware, but I wasn't surprised, either. Mother always saw everything coming before it hit. She knew it was her last night, and somehow, she cleaned and dressed herself, before dying peacefully. She helped me into this world. I was honored to be help her into the next world. There was sadness, but there was peace. She finally had the time to tell me that things had to change, not with words, but a piece of paper I found in her handwriting. She wanted to stop racism, war, hatred, lack of compassion, and she found a way to give me the message.

I watched as Mom died in my arms, but Sarah arose like a goddess, coming to life as her used shell of a body let go.

There is no one more beautiful. She cared for my soul as I cared for her body. There can be no greater love than the love between mother and daughter. She touches me still.

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