B
BettieB
Guest
My Mother’s Smile
Disbelief. No other word could more accurately describe thefeelings churning inside me, as I stared bewildered into the bathroom mirror,the iridescent light beaming onto my young face.
At 16, I was facing a nightmare.Only, I wasn’t dreaming. This was as real as life could be, but I wasn’t readyto confront it. My mother was dead. She had died the night before. I found herhalf naked, transparent, and lying in a small pool of her own vomit.
Now, I was standing there, makingfutile attempts at applying black mascara. Every bit being washed away, as astream of tears rolled down my cheeks. With each heartbeat, I drifted furtherfrom my depressing reality, but no matter how hard my mind tried, there was noturning back. Her funeral would start, whether I wanted it to be or not.
Arriving at the funeral, I struggledto greet the hordes of people gathering to say their final goodbyes. I wantedto run out and hide in the depths of my despair. There were no condolences thatcould console me, no lackluster promises that could convince me. I wasn’t goingto be alright.
As I approached the open casket, Ibegan to float. The rows of chairs, baskets of colorful flowers, and the utteremotion of sorrow that was transcendent throughout the room, ceased to exist.For one moment, for one hour, the time made no difference. I was merely anoutsider looking in.
Faster than I had left the room,faster than I had left reality, I was shuttled back in the blink of an eye, andthere she lied. My mother, A different face than I had saw the night before.The swelling had subsided and the make-up artists had been successful atbringing a natural tone to her skin.
My mother looked peaceful, driftingoff into an eternal resting place. It could even be said that a smile had beendiscreetly formed across her idled face. To me, it was a sign, a final messagefrom above. A message so powerful I again began to question my own reality. HadI seen her take a breath? Had I seen her blink her eyes? No, I hadn’t. Again, Iknew it was just the cruel tricks the mind will play, unable to accept thetruth.
However, I took that smile, thatfinal message with me. Finally, there was something that I could make sense of.
I remember a time long ago, a teengirl crying in my room. Crying over my first broken heart. My mother hadentered my room to comfort me. As stubborn as I had always been, nothing shesaid consoled me. Seeing my pain, and knowing my stubbornness, and persistence,that the world had ended, my mother left the room. Not out of frustration, butfrom understanding. She stood, steadfast and silent, walking out of the door,she turned to me, leaving me only with a smile that seemed to say, “You’regoing to be O.K.”
I knew that moment I looked down onmy mother, silent and still, she hadn’t left me for good. . My mother’s restingsmile, a reminder. When the world seems it has come crashing down, when ourhopes and dreams have dissipated into thin air, It’s never truly the end.
My mother’s death had knocked medown harder than a heavy weight champion throwing his winning punch, but I amstill standing.
Whenever I am overcome with the gutwrenching feeling of grief, I am reminded of my Mother’s smile. A smile thateven in death, had served a purpose. A reminder that in life, there certainlymust be, a purpose.
