Summer of Sorrow

I have a genetic predisposition to traveling. I was on a plane as an infant in arms, not even a year old, and I have not stopped since. My father gave me a love for the open road, and my mother a love for the open skies.

My mom was an excellent traveler. Even as a young girl, she traveled great distances, usually with her younger sister in tow. She would tell us of their train trip each summer from Chicago, where they were being raised, to New Orleans where they stayed with their paternal grandmother and Creole cousins. She spoke of waking to the heavy, humid summer air and aroma of chicory coffee.

She never stopped traveling. Her first job out of college, and after marrying my father, was with the airlines. In the late 1960s, you needed to be attractive and speak a foreign language for a customer-facing role in the industry. Her beauty was undeniable, and her French was sufficient for TWA, a major international airline at the time. This job suited her. It came with the perk of being able to fly almost anywhere in the world. She used this perk to reunite with my dad who, after college, served in the US Navy. Seattle, Hong Kong, Japan—wherever he was, they found a way to be together.

Before the children, it was just each other, and the world ahead. Chicago, 1968.

Even after my father passed, travel was still a part of my mom's life. There were additional arrangements and logistics to consider, but we did not hesitate to pack bags and totes and canes and snacks, and hit the road. Airline travel was more taxing, for many reasons, but we made those trips, too, because, as I said, my mom loved being in the air.

Last summer, when it was time to fly Mom from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast to see her granddaughter graduate from college, I had hesitations and resistance, but...it was her only grandchild, and as a family, we get hype for these kinds of accomplishments. And she loved flying. And she had traveled so well in just the past months.

Still in the skies. Still radiant. February, 2024.

So when we arrived at our destination, Las Vegas, Nevada, and my mom had walked onto the jet bridge to get into the wheelchair that would take her from the gate to baggage claim and onto our lodging, I never envisioned what would happen next.

The scene still plays in my mind. Some unknown force presses "play," and my eyes cannot leave the screen. One moment my mom is smiling and upright. And then, in slow motion, she falls to her right like a tree being felled by a lumberjack. There she lies, motionless. A cowboy would scoop her up and place her body in the wheelchair so she could be evaluated by paramedics at the gate. She was transported to the hospital, and within a few hours, would be diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury. She would have part of her skull removed to reduce the pressure of the blood building between her skull and her brain. This surgery was her only chance at survival. My mother was intubated on June 10, 2024. I never heard her voice again.

And so began my summer of sorrow. Of regret. Of second guessing. Of anger. Of resignation. Of faith. Of clarity. Of knowing.

I sat with my mom, watching her favorite shows, playing the music of Motown she loved, doing my French exercises, and sleeping bedside in a hospital recliner until August 14, 2024. In those weeks, I waited, believing she would “come back” to me, that she would open her eyes and wake. But when she did, the seizures began. Uncontrollable except with heavy sedatives. It was a cruel reality. Where hope and healing should have rushed in, a new layer of suffering for my mother took its place.

I had to come back east for a meeting. I had left once before, for a few days in July, also for a meeting, entrusting her well-being to the care team at the hospital and my brother. But when I left this time in August, I knew. I just knew.

Before I left the hospital to return my rental car and catch my flight, my mom opened her eyes and she smiled at me. And she moved her head, turning from the neck to look at the empty doorway with surprise, then looking back at me, smiling. I have seen similar scenes a few times before. I knew what was happening.

This was not my first time keeping vigil bedside. I had done so with my mother's mother, my father's parents, and with my father. In each of those experiences, when they were nearing time for departure, there would be a breakthrough. Lucidity and vibrancy when they had been lethargic for days or weeks. Verbalizing names of ancestors or giving instructions. Their eyes focused on something or someone I could not see with my natural eyes.

So when my mom smiled at me, big as day, I knew. She was not able to speak, but every daughter knows what their mother is saying, without uttering a word. When she focused on the seemingly empty doorway, I knew. And since she could no longer speak, I called the names of the ancestors I knew were now gathered in the room with us. Mama Rossie. Mama Libby. Aunt Linda. Big Mama. And, I just assume, my dad was there, too. See, their song was, “You'll Never Walk Alone,” and there's no way my dad would let my mom take this particular journey without being by her side.

The maternal line. Chicago, 1958.

I held my mother's hand. I cried. I went to the bathroom to wipe my face and gather myself. My mother smiled.

I prayed Psalm 46, and I stayed still. “Be still, and know that I am God.” I had done this every day in that literal desert. I don't know why Psalm 46 came to me. I have never read the Bible in its entirety, and the only scripture I can quote from memory is John 3:16. I kept crying. Holding my mother's hand, I wiped those tears. I remembered a scripture about not having a spirit of fear. I wasn't scared, but I knew I would soon be an orphan.

I told my mom I had to go, I had to catch my flight. I told her my brother would come later that evening to see her. I knew he would. I just wasn’t sure if he would make it in time. She smiled, and I reluctantly left, numb with knowledge of the inevitable.

My brother would call 48 hours or so later to tell me. He was calling from the hospital room, crying. He kept apologizing for stepping away, for not being there in the final moments. I asked for the nurse. He passed the phone. That nurse's responses to my inquiry were unsatisfactory, so I asked for the charge nurse. And then the doctor. I have my own protocol.

Then I went to sleep.

When I awoke, a few days later, I had to GO. I cannot articulate why, but it was time to make my way to New Orleans. I arrived on a late flight, and walked through Louis Armstrong airport like it was my normal routine. When the Uber driver asked if I was visiting, I said, “No, coming home. I've just been gone a long time,” and that felt true.

I looked out the windows and remarked at what had changed since my last visit, without ever wondering how *I* had changed in those summer months in the desert. I only knew I had to answer calls I could not hear with my natural ears.

To be clear, this was not fight, flight or freeze. This was not a traumatic response, though I absolutely witnessed a trauma, and then endured my own, several times, back to back. A friend asked me during this time how I could be so calm. I didn't know then, but now, I would say: because my mother smiled.

I met with the spirit of both my parents at an intimate venue in New Orleans, a place beloved by both of them, to listen to Preservation Hall Jazz Band. I ordered my mother's drink—Maker’s Mark—and let the tears fall as I shared a table with a stranger from South Africa, front row center. The band leader made eye contact with me, and mouthed, “You ok?” and I nodded. Ok is relative, and it comes and goes, but starting my life anew, taking baby steps like a toddler, without the physical presence of either of my parents somehow felt right to start in New Orleans. Whether wandering the streets alone in the darkness or at the peak of the noonday sun mattered not. I knew that place, and it is home.

I would return to North Carolina to meet my mother's body. It's a bittersweet smile when I think of how many flights my mom took after death. I personally think she is delighted, and bragging to her heavenly friends about how her children flew her first class to Las Vegas, Nevada, where she died. Then, flew her back to North Carolina for one funeral. Then she was chauffeured in a brand-new black Cadillac, so shiny you could see your reflection, to another service in a different small North Carolina town. And finally, she was flown to Chicago for her last service, where she was laid to rest beside Mama Rossie. It was absurd, eccentric, and perfect. Her favorite flex was, “My kids love me.” And we did. We do.

I know what you're thinking. Why did you have all those services across the country? Well, technically, it's what she wanted. All the places we took Mom she considered “home.”

In this last year, as I have been recovering and rebuilding, there has been an odd obsession with my life and my movements by people who have not walked one mile in my shoes. Before my mother was in the ground, one suggested I get a job for “routine.” Another implored me to “settle down.” Some have tried to dictate to me where my home is.

I am my parents’ daughter. My dad taught me the world is wide and worth exploring. My mom called at least five places home during her life. They both encouraged curiosity about people, places, and experiences foreign to our own lives. So, no, I am not lost or aimless with grief. I am just walking out the legacy they left me.

For those watching from the sidelines, weighing in on what I should be doing, where I ought to be, or how I ought to grieve, please, save your breath. I carry my father’s sense of wonder and my mother’s wings. Routine was never the point, and settling has never been my style.

My life will not look like yours. It doesn’t even look like the one I imagined. I am figuring it out. In my own rhythm. On my own terms. I will not apologize for that.

Over the past five years, grief—with fleeting moments of joy—has written much of my story. That season has served its purpose. From here, I hold the pen and the power. And I’ll write the rest.