My mom is gone. Just three hours after I returned to Portland from the St. Francis MFA residency, the phone call came that she had passed over. When I reached her, St Joseph’s Home had left the window open a crack so her soul could leave, they said, but I still felt some of her spirit there and she was still warm, warm enough to kiss, to say goodbye to. What a gift, to stay with her till the last warmth had gone. Beautiful Maggie, just a few months shy of your 97th birthday. I know I will be with you in another lifetime; you said to me recently, “I am more certain of that than of anything!” Thank you for making me a feminist, a witch, a poet. This poem is from Maggie’s last book, Crone’s Wines, which I edited last year for Able Muse Press.
All sympathy to you, Annie. Your mother’s poem and your account are so moving. It’s good that you got there quickly. Various people and belief systems have different ways of describing how that happens, but in my personal experience, it does take the spirit a while to pass. When my father died, I felt it (at a distance of some 250 miles, and half an hour after his last breath). When my mother went (at 96), I was there– and grateful to be the one who was there. That was years ago now, but I still talk to them in my head and miss them terribly. May your mom’s memory be for a blessing.
Dear Jacqueline,
Thank you for this moving comment. Wow. 250 miles and a half hour. I had a sense of great lightness at my mohter’s passing that I hadn’t felt at my father’s (his is described in my poem “Elegy for My Father” ). I think she had done so much spiritual work that she was already mostly there by the time she passed 🙂 Thank you again, and peace to you.
Oh may you be comforted by poetry and by others’ words and wishes Annie! What a beauty was Maggie! Goodness we women are all in a certain boat on a certain tide, I guess. My mom Jeanne just celebrated her 95th birthday– the same day as Colette Inez passed — Mom said that day she was glad she’s lived this long — 2 of my children, my husband and my brother celebrated with her — and my mom too wrote poems from her teens through her college years at Smith
up until her middle age, but she never was driven to publish(she may have sent one or two RHYMING poems to the New Yorker which would not have been their style at that time.)
Certainly I got my love of books from my mother. I don’t know how I will manage without her, though our relationship has been so conflicted up until the last few years
I’ve made peace with the conflict. I love her. I love your thoughts and Maggie Finch’s poem. How lovely lucky to be able
to edit your mother’s book. Her gift to you, I think. Like Jacqueline I too talk to my Dad in my head and miss him terribly. SUch beautiful words. And how I will miss my mother
I cannot even breathe to think of it. All the comfort and the wonderful poems on WOMPO these past few days: A balm to the daughter bereaved.
Dear Patricia,
Thank you for the kind words and thoughts.
blessings,
Annie
Dear Annie,
I am sorry for the loss of your mother, Maggie. Even though she lived a very long life, and you both knew that your lives together will forever be entwined in future lives and ways, it
is still sad and it is still the deepest loss of that fundamental relationship. My mother, Valerie, passed away on Sept. 6th and I sat with her, alone, for three hours afterwards, although I was not present at the moment when she passed. I too was grateful for the peace and opportunity— her window open a bit as well. These last five months have been more challenging than I was prepared for them to be. Do you remember her at your reading in Damariscotta, where you gave one of your beautiful, fluid, generous, poetry performances for a ME Women Write talk? She loved it too. Hold on to your gifts and your memories of what you shared with your mother and she will always be with you.
Warmest hugs to you,
Nicole
Dear Nicole,
I do remember your beautiful, elegant mother. I remember her and that day. I remember how close you were with her, and I’m touched that we each lost our mothers in such similar ways and times. Blessings! I’m with you!