Always Put The Knives Away Before You Go To Bed

My mother had a fear of someone breaking into our home, seeing a knife on the kitchen counter, and doing whatever they had to do to rob us. She insisted all the knives were put away neatly in their drawers before we went to bed.

Although I understood her fear (to a point), I figured no robber would be so dumb he wouldn’t know to look in a drawer to find a knife if he needed one. Maybe he brought his own and came prepared for the job at hand.

But think about this. Always put the knives away before you go to bed. Isn’t it a good idea to put your own “knives” away before you sleep?

If you and your husband were fighting during the day, don’t carry that over into your bedroom. Don’t go to sleep after yelling at your child and have them fall asleep to the sounds of your anger. Don’t let someone you love go to sleep thinking you are upset with them. Put your knives away as well.

My father had the habit of carrying over a fight until the next day. This was very damaging. My mother would constantly say to him, “Phil, let it go! Can’t you find anything current to argue about?” However, for some unknown reason he could not. If he argued with you tonight, he would pick up the argument first thing in the morning. Please don’t do this. I know he loved us, but what a terrible way to live. If you are that filled with anger, please seek help. You will be doing not only yourself a favor, but your loved ones as well.

Do you know how often someone argues with a loved one and for some tragic reason that person is killed or dies before they can say they are sorry? Can you imagine the pain and heartache the loved one feels? Make amends now. Say you are sorry now. It doesn’t matter who is right or who is wrong. No one wins a fight or an argument, you know that. Be big enough to admit when you are wrong or have made a mistake. Even if you are convinced you are right, what does it really matter? If you love someone let them know every day how you feel about them. Never go to bed angry or let someone you love do the same.

My mother was only weeks away from death. One night as I lay on the couch in the family room that sat next to her bedroom, I heard her call out to me. I ran to her side, and she was sitting up in her bed and wanted her morning coffee. I wearily looked at the clock and it read 3:00 am.

Exasperated, I tried to reason with her it was not time to get up, but she had been bedridden for over a month and was disoriented. The morphine she took for pain did not make her mind any clearer, and with my childish arrogance, I challenged her. I stood in her room and argued with her it was not time to get up and she needed to go back to sleep. In her delirium, she said, “I will report you to Hospice!” I told her I would give her the phone. While she was at it, she could call the police and have me thrown in jail for not getting her coffee at three in the morning. Maybe then I would get some much-needed rest!

Here I was, a grown woman arguing with my mother who was dying of cancer. Yelling at her as I had done so many times before. What kind of horrible person does that? I was raised in a house where my father fought with her every day and it was in my nature to do the same no matter how damaging this was to her. However, looking back now on this scenario, I can smile to myself since I was not equipped or prepared to deal with a dying parent. We never are. They are not supposed to die and leave us.

After a few moments of back-and-forth nothing, I ran back to the couch and cried. I begged God for forgiveness for yelling at her, a dying woman, my mother, who was not at fault. I should have known better, but the stress and lack of sleep had gotten to me and I had snapped. Not too far that I couldn’t be reached, but I bent just a little.

So, I took a big gulp, swallowed my pride, and went back into her room to apologize. She was smiling at me and said that it was okay, she was sorry too and had forgotten all about it. “May I have my coffee now?” she said. That was the way it was with us. We understood each other even under the most stressful of times.

Years later, I found a note my mother had written to me I had never seen. It was dated March 11, 1988… 18 years before she passed away. It read, “To Lisa, don’t worry about any disagreements that we might have had. I will always remember that the last words I heard were I love you.” How could she possibly have known that 18 years later, the last words I spoke to her were, I love you… but they were.

When we are faced with a challenge such as caring for a dying parent, we may say things we don’t mean, even lash out at others. Stress has a way of changing you. Although you will feel horribly guilty, as I did, it is normal so try not to beat yourself up over it. Even though it took a lot for me to apologize to her, I am glad I had the courage and maturity to do it. I could not see the big picture as I do now and it was not in my nature to be apologetic, even to her. I would go through life not caring who I hurt with my harsh words and angry demeanor. I was hell-bent on getting my way, the only way, and I didn’t care who I had to go through to get it.

Of course, I loved my mother very much, and we had an understanding, but I believe now growing up, I must have been a real handful to her many times over. She always said boys were easier to raise than girls, and maybe she was right. In our angrier times, she would call me a nasty, vicious shrew. “Just look at you!” she would say. “Do you know how ugly you look when you are screaming like that?” She was right. I was ugly, ugly and miserable and I wanted everyone around me to be in misery too and I did everything I could to make that happen.

That morning, after I got her coffee and watched country music videos with her, she calmly went back to sleep. I no longer cared that it was three in the morning; actual clock time meant nothing at that point. The important thing was that I got to spend a little more time with her. Sleep would come to me later - this was her time. A while later during the early morning hours right before dawn, I heard her call out for her mother, “Mama, mama…”

This scared me since I knew our mothers are the first person we see in life and the last we call out for in death. I ran to her and her sleepy and painful eyes searched frantically in the room for her mother. I took her hand and in the softest, calming Kentucky accent I could muster, I called her a familiar childhood name, her real first name actually, and spoke to her the way her mother would have. “Honey child, mama’s right here. You go on to sleep now and quit that ol’ hollerin’, you’re gonna wake the babies. Everything is okay.”

She looked up at me and in her confusion, smiled the sweetest smile and said, “Goodnight Mama, I love you.”

I said, “Mama loves you too Ruby, now go on back to sleep.”

I felt that was the right thing to do, and I’m glad I put my knives away before she went to sleep. ♥