I missed the death of Raquel Welch because I was eyeball-deep in caring for Aunt Virginia in her final days. Raquel died (2/15/23) four days before my aunt (2/19/23). Both born in 1940, Raquel (who had Alzheimer’s) was three months younger than my mother who is still alive.
Raquel’s passing for most of the world is a mere news headline. To her children, a long-dreaded event. I dread the passing of my mother for more reasons than I care to admit.
But in looking at those reasons, I’ve come to understand better what my children are going through when thinking of their mother’s death…my death…and I’m pretty sure I know what each reaction will be.
My son will miss me. My daughter will not. In fact, she will be happy I’m gone. Not because I was a terrible mother, but because she was just like her father. Neither he or she, nor any of his relatives or my own mother, ever understood me nor wanted to make allowances for my personality. I was not what they needed me to be, that is, someone just like themselves. Oh how I tried to be what they needed. Very tiring…and sad.
In other words, my death will be a relief for them. One less thing to have to figure out. One less person they will have to work to get to know. And frankly, those who went before brought me relief. One less person to have to jump through hoops for just to maintain the peace.
To be fair, I won’t miss my daughter or my mother when they are gone. I have not missed my ex either after the divorce or since he died (January 2023) nor any of his relatives. You may think I’m being hardhearted in this, but as I write I cry for all the missed opportunities for forming happy memories.
I could — and can! — see their kind and happy parts that they simply would not allow in their lives on a regular basis. Why could they not allow those? Was their DNA so strong that it produced smiling manipulative people and there was nothing they could do about it? They didn’t and don’t have the emotional, spiritual, or mental energy to understand someone alien to themselves, much less accept them.
Unless my siblings don’t tell me our mother died, I will be at her funeral and I will be thinking of all the missed opportunities to have a loving mother that she just would not allow me to have. That’s what I will miss the most: The What Could’ve Beens.
I’ve preemptively taken that lesson and applied it to my daughter.
What can I do to help her understand that I do love her and accept her and that I’m not always judging her harshly? I’ve been working on that her whole life literally since the day she was born and she didn’t like it that I didn’t change her diaper fast enough and held her breath and turned blue. I had never before seen anybody hold their breath and turn blue on purpose. Her father, on the other hand, had and knew just what to do. She would do that again when she was three and her father was at work and I was pregnant with her brother and so huge I couldn’t do anything but laugh when she fell over and knocked the breath back into herself. Much to her relief and mine, I will tell you.
I wasn’t laughing out of spite or happy that she was going to die. I was laughing at the absurdity of it all. How would I explain this to the police when I told them that she died because she willingly stopped breathing? Like they would believe that!
Fast forward to when she had her first child, a daughter. When her daughter was barely two, she said, “Mom. I do not understand her. She’s just like you!” At that my granddaughter, happily eating lunch at the table, turned to me and me to her and we both just laughed in complete understanding of our mutual challenges with my daughter, her mother.
My superpower, if you will, is always thinking that people can change. But can they? There is a scripture that says we should “…strip off the old personality…with its practices…and put on the new…”. (Ephesians 4: 22,24; Colossians 3:9-10)
I used to think that meant a profound change in the person. You know, DNA deep. But I have come to understand that is not the case. One can desire things harmful to self and others, but one can choose not to do them and can stop. Does that mean their hardwired personality disappears? No. It simply means they must spend energy to keep it under control.
At some point a person must choose — that is, exercise free will — to change behavior. But most folks don’t have the energy, desire, or will to change. In other words, they like what they are and see nothing wrong and the whole world must change to suit them because, as they like to say, “I’m okay. You’re not okay.”
And that’s when they begin practicing the art of gaslighting.
That’s another story for later. For now, the Bible asks “Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?”
I think of the victory of death. While death is our loathsome enemy, we are just as equally happy when death brings a release from pain either physical, emotional, or spiritual.
When I was with Aunt Virginia I asked, “Do you believe in a heaven where your mother and father and siblings will be when you die?”
Her answer? “Yes, with all my heart.”
My next question: “Do you believe that heaven is a place where there is no pain, no unhappiness, no hunger? A place of joy, happiness, and delight?”
Her answer: “Absolutely!”
Then I asked, “Well, if that is the case and you are miserable and in pain from the cancer and diabetes and their treatments and cannot enjoy or chew your food and can’t look after your pets and they are not being cleaned and fed properly because you cannot get up, why is it you are working so hard to continue to live like this?”
She thought for one hour, then finally said, “I don’t want to.”
And from that moment on death was not something for her to automatically run away from. She began making phone calls to her friends telling them she was dying and didn’t have long. She asked some to come over and get things she wanted to give them. She had me pack up things for other people and told me how to deliver those. Her last two weeks, while very hard still on her and me for looking after her, were actually filled with joy.
From the time I asked those questions of her until she died, fourteen days passed. But they were happy days.
I heard her say, “Yes, I will be dying soon. No…No…listen…it will be a good thing. I’ll be out of pain and will be in heaven. This is a good thing.” She gave comfort to others.
We laughed and had a good time where we could. For instance, she loved the old black and white Perry Mason shows. So, when they’d come on, I’d stop whatever I was doing and begin an interpretive dance to the theme song. When the female in trouble came into Mason’s office, I’d hold my hand to my forehead and swoon saying in my best Southern Belle accent, “Oh, Mistah MAYson, MIStah Mayson! Whatever shall I do? Can ya hep me, Mistah MaySON?!?”
Aunt Virginia laughed loud and long at that floor show.
She talked for hours on end. Middle of the night or middle of the day found me stopping what I was doing to sit quietly in front of her as she told stories of her early childhood, of disappointments in her life, of bitterness she never before had the courage to say aloud and let go, of the promise she wanted me to make that her casket would remain closed no matter who wanted to peek in and “I mean it, Angela!” I kept that promise.
You want to know what her burial clothes of choice were? Pink satin pajamas (long sleeve blouse and bottom) with little red hearts on them. No shoes. No makeup. No hair fluffed. Just her comfy pajamas for the Big Sleep. “Promise me, Angela!” I kept that promise, too.
She laughed and joked about how she would be shocking future generations of graveyard wanderers when they saw she was the third wife of Buford and was buried next to them all.
“Angela, I’ve got some things I want you to read at the funeral.” I read them. Yes, people cried at those and later told me how much she would be missed.
I think of my own funeral.
Don’t we all? I don’t want a funeral. I want my kids to go through my phone and emails and Facebook and look for personal relationships and invite everybody to a party at Longhorn — My TREAT! — where platters of food will be placed on a long table, and everyone can fill up their own plates. Where they will all talk about my writing, my wit, my songs, my singing, and other stories of our interactions I dare not mention here but am sure will include something about how much I aggravated them but “And let me tell you, she was right!”
I want them to laugh at their memories of me and miss me because I brought something good to their lives and feel free to tell those stories even if in the telling they shed tears. I want a combo party of mourning and mirth, but never sorrow. I want my daughter to be free of what she operates under: The belief in the oppressive nature of her mother.
We all die. The closer we get to the end of life, the more opportunity we have for not wasting time. Pity we don’t learn those lessons earlier.
Lessons such as: Identifying that gaslighting comes from those we believe love us.
Lessons such as: Courage to be our genuine self even if to be that means we stop trying to jump through impossible hoops set for us by those we love.
Lessons such as: Dancing like no one is watching because what does it matter anyway?
Lessons such as: Love doesn’t always beat Evil in the battle, but it will win the war.
And other such lessons that not all can ever learn and more’s the pity for them.
God is Love. God’s love for us has lasted since he created Adam and Eve. While they screwed things up thanks to Satan’s gaslighting, His love remains even though He seems slow in showing it. But we are in a war of Good versus Evil. Have been ever since Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. War is never easy. But Love will prevail.
No matter what Satan throws at us.
No matter how much his minions and demons attempt to conquer us.
We, who believe in Almighty God the Creator of all, even if imperfect and never quite managing to change our DNA-deep personalities though we work hard at it, will reap the reward if we do not tire out.
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Born and raised in Georgia, Angela K. Durden is an author, publisher, editor, songwriter, performer, and more, living in Metro Atlanta, Georgia. She appreciates your support of her Citizen Journalism by purchasing her books. Visit her Consolidated Author Page and buy a book or three. See more about Angela here. Want to watch a fun video? Click here.
