Learning To Be Brave Thanks Mom

“No news is good news.” Mom said. I learned young that sometimes news can be bad. Not knowing can feel better inside, until not knowing feels like it is taking all your breath away.

Long ago I crouched at the corner of the hall, right next to the stairs, watching my Mom sit silently in the dark. Curled into the corner of the front room sofa, the fancy one in the room made up only for guests.

Golden flowers and pine-green leaves on the fabric, glistened in the shadows. The hall light left on created a glow, lighting up the edges of my Mom’s face and making her ice-blue eyes shine enough for me to see her tears fall.

Quietly I climbed onto the forbidden couch and curled myself into her side. Her heart beat reached out to me from within her pink nightgown, the silk rubbing against my cheek with every breath she took, we practiced being brave.

We sat this way, in the dark breathing together, many nights during my youth. Waiting on news, or my Dad to come home. In my little mind back then, no news is good news meant I got to practice being brave while cuddling my Mom. Most days there was not enough time for such things.

Lights shone in the front room window, shadows traveled across the grandfather clock set on silent, so as not to alarm one to the late hour. Safire planets danced between the numbers I had been learning in school that year, both the hands rested on three. “Head back to bed.” Mom said.

I padded down the hall in my footed pajamas as his yelling began to fill every fiber in the room. My bears held me as I drifted in and out of sleep, tears drying on my cheeks and my pillow case, the sky-blue one my Mom embroidered a happy turtle on.

I learned news can be a lie. One year on April First, my older sister had a job in a restaurant kitchen. Her friends, the people she worked with, thought a phone call would be funny.

They called my Mom, said they had news. My sister had fallen down the elevator shaft, had been taken to the emergency room in bad shape. I sat watching from my spot, playing jacks on the basement tiled floor. My Mom was crushed, weeping on the checkered tiles in front of me, her tears bouncing off my metallic jacks. A fear I had never seen before reflected out of her cobalt eyes.

April Fools they said laughing. It was as if the air had been sucked out of my Mom, she collapsed in front of me. My dad picked up the phone, he let them know how funny he thought it was, from the other room. I stayed and tended to my Mom, we practiced being brave, people can be cruel.

News can be so sad, it can make life too full of pain. The year they said they could not drain my Grandma’s lungs another time. Mom and I sat together as hospice delivered morphine to keep Grandma comfortable and calm. I couldn’t feel my face, carried out Grandma’s last bath in a daze.

Grandma became distant, as Mom and I practiced being brave. On her very last day, Grandma woke up for a moment to say she had news, something important to tell us.

When we inquired, she shared she could not remember what it was, said before she woke, she had been at the fair, dancing with Grandpa and wanted to return.

Mom’s hand was on my shoulder as Grandma left us the very next day. Mom and I walked through those days slowly, preparing a loved one to pass and holding our hearts gently, trying to be brave.

So many moment like these, fill my crying eyes. Mom and I together reaching for the skies. As long as we have each other, we can get through any amount of foul weather, practicing being brave.

News can take all the breath out of a body. When Mom got the news of leukemia, deep inhale was held inside me. Fear swam all around, threatening to devour what I most love. During those days, Mom and I tried to increase our brave, building on what we had learned as Grandma approached the grave.

On Mom’s last breath, mine stopped too. No idea what to do, no one to help me be brave now. Had to prepare my Mom and place her underground, no sound. Waiting on news from above, praying for the power to turn this thing around.

Where is she now? News can be painfully slow, news can be debilitating. “No news is good news.” I wish I could hear her say.

Just breathing gets me through somedays and my Mom once again teaches me to be brave.

Thanks Mom, I love you!