how to say goodbye
on 12 years without my mom
The other day, as I was sitting in a waiting room in a moment of forced pause, I was surprised by the thought that came to mind.
I thought about how I want to die.
It was not that I want to die—I very much love my life and hope God gives me many, many more years—but how I want it all to go, when the time comes.
The end of this month will mark twelve years since my mom died of cancer. I’m sure that’s why thoughts of my own eventual death were bubbling beneath the surface, waiting for a quiet moment to emerge. January comes around with its dark and cold, and my subconscious remembers what this month once held.
As I sat there, unexpectedly imagining my final hours, I pictured singing.
I hope I am surrounded by loved ones, and I hope they are singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs over me.
A gift of cancer—if we can be bold enough to use those two words in the same sentence—is that you typically have some time to die. The offramp can be long, creating space for final moments.
On January 6, 2014, over a year since her diagnosis, my mother was given a few days to live. She ended up taking 22.
A 22-day deathwatch is not easy for anyone, much less three teenagers. We did not sing at my mom’s bedside for three straight weeks (and not simply because we went to a non-denominational megachurch and didn’t know enough hymns.) I didn’t sit there, unmoving, in prayer.
I went upstairs and watched a few rom-coms. I left the house and met some friends for dinner. I yelled at my brothers for leaving a bowl of milk on the table after breakfast. I stared at the ceiling and wished I had a boyfriend.1
But mostly, I was there, lying next to Mom. And mostly, it was terrible.
And yet, like the candles flickering beside me as I write this, there were moments where light broke through.
Family and old friends visited one last time, the urgency of death bringing to the surface things long left unsaid. My mom was mostly past speaking—but she listened, and her room brimmed with words of grace and forgiveness, with prayers and tears, and yes, with song.
Eventually, I felt it was my turn to offer what strength and hope I could as we were swallowed up by the shadow of death.
I wrote about that moment later, in 2018, four years after she was gone.2 I’ll share it with you here:
Heaven, and Saying Goodbye
You have to tell her she can go. That you know she’s tired, that you know it hurts, that it will be okay and you will be okay. You’ll be lying—but say it anyway. Truth is, you have no idea how tired she is, how much it hurts to have your body betray you from the inside out. You’re only eighteen years old and to say you understand her is ridiculous. You don’t know a thing about what drives a mother to stay and fight and scrape out breath after breath to be there for you. She does it all for you.
And that’s why you’re here. That’s why you have to tell her.
You know she loves you, but damn it, she told you herself that you’ll never know how much until you’re holding a baby of your own. It’s hard to picture a warm bundle in your arms one day, hard to swallow the idea of being a mother without your own. You can’t think about that now.
No. There’ll be time—plenty of it, years of it—to think about those things. Those hoped-for, bright and future days, every beautiful thing that she’ll miss. But today is not hoped-for. It is not swathed in warmth and joy and the promise of something new. You are laying next to her in bed right now because you have a job to do, an important message to deliver.
So look at her, and try not to hate what you see. It’s hard. You take in the sunken face, the broken front tooth from last month’s fall, the wasted legs that you could wrap your fingers all the way around. It never looks this bad in the movies. It’s not something you can fake for a screen.
Lie there beside her, watching her chest shakily rise and fall. There was a time when a scene like this was reversed, you imagine. Her, tired and overwhelmed but so in love, nuzzled next to you, eyes tracking the rhythmic breathing of her newborn baby girl. Even when you were older, a teenager who let ‘I hate you’ slip out one too many times, she would still come into your room at night, perch on the edge of your bed, and slowly rub your back, feeling your breath fill your lungs. That image: a darkened silhouette, a warm palm, a whispered “I love you,” and the quiet click-close of the door when she slipped out. In the morning you wouldn’t remember if it was a dream, her coming in and softly telling you goodnight. Today it sure feels like all those nights had to be.
“Hey, Mama.”
You exhale, roll onto your side, curl up next to her, clutching yourself tight. Her eyes flutter open, revealing that faraway look that’s been there these past few weeks since she came home from the hospital. With a sharp intake of breath, you begin.
“Mama-”
Try not to hesitate.
“It’s okay.”
Every inch of you will scream that it is not, but you have to say it anyway. Tell her that she can be done, that she can stop, that she can let go.
Lie there, and unfold your life—tell her about all of the things you are going to do and introduce her to all of the people you are going to be.
With your words, take her to high school graduation, the first family vacation planned by Dad, moving into your college dorm. Remind her that you chose your major because you love it, and she’s always encouraged you to chase what you love (even though Dad would love for you to follow his footsteps). Thank her.
There is so much to thank her for. So much of you is her. And laugh, because not all you got from her is good. It’s okay to laugh.
In that dark, quiet room, with the pounds of equipment bunched into the corner, with the January sun setting early outside the window, unfurl your dreams. It doesn’t have to be that pretty eloquence that you work hard for, and it doesn’t have to all make sense—but in a steady and sure voice tell her of all the things that you’re hoping for. She needs to know that you’re still hoping for things, that you’ll keep hoping, even after she’s gone.
You’ll have to say it more than once, again and again, this statement that you will be okay. That you all will be. Your brothers, your dad. Let her know that you’ll keep ‘em in check, that you’ll keep the house clean and the dogs fed, that you’ll dance with the boys at their weddings when they play the Mother-Son song.
Assure her that there is a difference between giving up and letting go, that none of you will ever see her as anyone that “lost” to anything.
Talk about heaven.
There’s a story you never told her, from that high school expedition trip she let you go on two summers back. She was diagnosed right after you got accepted to go, and she didn’t know if she had months or years left. But she sent you off anyway, wanting you to experience a new slice of the world. So you went. You were fifteen years old and four thousand miles from family for the first time, desperately homesick. Tell her how the first morning came and you woke up alone in a vaulted white room with four girls you’d just met, and your groggy eyes opened, surprised by the light. As the early sun poured in the window, in too poured the rich sound of an organ, and you thought for a second God himself was coming back before you realized that just beyond the glass was an old cathedral starting Sunday service. You laid there, the room awash in dazzling light, and calm settled on you like a dove. In the radiance that pierced through that quiet morning, your only thought was, “this is what heaven, this is what glory, is.” Tell her about the peace of that moment, about the song, about the light. Tell her she can go there and rest. Tell her that it will be beautiful.
You have so much to tell her, so don’t forget you have time, the two of you in that room. Say you will never, could never, forget her. Say you love her with all of your heart. Say she will always be your mama. Say how grateful you are that God gave you to each other.
Until you both believe it, say that it’s okay. Give your mother, your mama, permission to go. To enter His rest. To be healed. To go home.
She’s too sick to talk. Don’t expect a response. But she’s been listening, and after a few moments she asks you in a soft voice to tell her the story again. The one about the light and peace and heaven.
When you finish, her exhale says it all.
Thank you.
This scene wasn’t our final moment together, it was simply a glimmer of grace in a month of darkness. The days of watching and waiting carried on a while longer, until the final ember of miracle-hope was snuffed out.
Finally, the watch ended. The hospice bed and oxygen tank were disassembled and rolled out the front door.
The dream of an eleventh hour healing was gone. We were left with a different hope, a deeper hope, a harder and heavier hope—the only hope that can, wonder of wonders, never be extinguished. It’s a hope that’s lasted twelve years and will last the next twelve and the next and the next and the next.
Today, so much of what I said to her that afternoon has come to pass. All three of her beloved children are married. She has four granddaughters, and a grandson on the way. Oh, how she would love them.
Now that I am a mother myself, I find my heart pulled outward—from my experience as a daughter losing her mom, to her experience as a mom saying goodbye to her babies.
I know what it felt like for me that day, but what did it feel like for her?
What was it like to be told to let go by the person you most want to hold on to?
What was it like to be told that all will be well by the one you were made to comfort?
What was it like to be reminded of the hope, of the depth of God’s love by the person you prayed for years to know and experience that love?
I imagine it was heartbreaking, and beautiful, and freeing. Bitter and sweet.
I hope it was, at least.
Because when I picture my own daughter, grown, speaking God’s love over me at the end of my life, I think that may be what this whole thing is all about.
To build a life on the love of Jesus—to receive that love and give that love, to trust in the goodness of God, to practice faithfulness day after day, to serve and to apologize and to pray and to hope and to sing, even and especially through tears, through loss, through pain—to plant and tend those seeds over years so that this fruit would one day grow and show up here, at the end of all things.
That’s what my mom did. That’s what I’m aiming for.
In those final 22 days, Mom was so sick that she could give nothing back to us. No final wise words to live forever in my heart, to carry and comfort me every January. No, she could barely even look us in the eyes.
But she had spent her life teaching us how to love, pointing us to the One who is Love.
And as she laid there, she let us love her back. She let us love her home. She let us sing.
God willing, the last page of my story will look something like that, too.
Probably connected to the rom-coms.
This is beautiful and made me cry! I think it was thinking about if my daughter were ever in your shoes. All I can say is thank God for Jesus.
“to plant and tend those seeds over years so that this fruit would one day grow and show up here, at the end of all things.”
I am always grateful when you write on this topic.