Our Blueprint

When I last wrote it was to give Mom voice. My way to somehow piece together her physical pain and emotional turmoil. Her death journey.

I felt helpless. Hadn’t I gained experience of how to cope with death from my husband Harry’s? Shouldn’t that give me some leverage?

It took some time but I realize I wasn’t helpless when they were dying. More importantly, they weren’t either. Death isn’t really any different than life. One day at a time using whatever you have and yield to love.

The experience I gained wasn’t about death. Death doesn’t teach you. It strips you of every power you thought you hid safely in your Denial Pocket. Powers useless at such a time. 

Love dangles in front of our noses when a loved one is dying. We can either turn away or hug the hell out of it. Anger and resentment also try to distract us. Neither of those feelings heal the pain we go through.

Mom and Harry both had charms of a four-leaf clover— they never said “Uncle”. Never wanted to appear helpless. Survival tools were their specialty in life. It was who they were. 

When death came slipping under the door to greet them they didn’t need the tools they’d used all their life. They needed us. They needed to be reminded they were loved. Love uncovers helplessness and exposes it to the truth. We are vulnerable, yes, but not helpless when we are loved.

We have to unroll a new blueprint on life and begin. Death is actually about us not them. They passed on the four-leaf clover. It’s our start from that point that continues the power of love they left with us.

“Life is frustrating”, Mom said near her life's end. Not Can be but Is. Here was a woman who preferred to say “I’m fine” even when she was far from okay. 

“Mom,” I want to say, “Death is frustrating, but I’m fine.”

Oh and... “I miss you terribly.”

Paula Jean Cronan 1926-2025  Harry Stanley Madagame 1938-2009