“Behave Yourself”

I’m sitting here on an airplane writing this. On the airplane from returning my mom to her place of birth and the place her remains will stay.


I couldn’t get into reading this flight and decided to watch the movie that is playing, Secretariat, and about half way through the movie the owner of the horse has had a stroke and about to die and his daughter is sitting beside his hospital bed telling him all about the hours and all it was accomplishing.

It was at that moment that the tears started to fall. I started to replay the memories of my mother’s last days. The last conversations we had, the last thing she ate (my french-fries from McDonald I brought for my lunch). We both knew our time together would not last long and yet, we didn’t discuss it. It just was. A couple of week before we had taken care of the logistics, she told me exactly what she wanted. She knew.

I want to know why it is on an airplane that I can let the emotions and the tears fall?

I spent pretty much the 78 hours of her life here on earth at her bedside. The last time she spoke was when I was holding the phone to her ear and she was talking to my sister and niece and she told them both she loved them. The last time she tried to speak, she mouthed the words: I Love You, to me.

A day later the last thing I said as I kissed her forehead and prepared to go and take a much needed nap (that I never got) was our normal departing routine. What do you say to someone that is living in a nursing home? I would say, “I love you and behave yourself”. Her reply,’ Luv You Too’, never came.