McDermott, Mark :: Mom

Mom December 2005

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Artwork Details

Title:	Mom December 2005
Artist:	None Specified
Media Type:	Photograph
Art Type:	Photograph
For Sale Status:
Views:	791
Likes on CAF:	1 2
Comments:	4
Added to Site:	3/14/2018
Comic Art Archive:

Description

I think I said; �What?� Even though I heard her the first time, she repeated herself. I said; �Does my Mom know?� She said matter-of-fact; �Oh yes, we called her already.� I said;
�Am I supposed to stay here with my Dad.� She said; �No, everything will be taken care of.� So, I just said; Thank you.� And made my way out the door.

I used to make that drive home after working 8-12 hours in Ludlow as a teenager. Even though I was usually exhausted, I would remember every turn of that 10 mile drive. That particular drive home, I don�t recall a thing. I do remember stopping at the center of Belchertown (3 miles from home) and calling my Mom from a payphone. When she answered, she wondered where I was and if I had heard the news. I told her I wasn�t sure if I was supposed to wait for my father�s body as the funeral parole was 300 feet away. She said to come home as everyone was already there.

This was my introduction to loss. My father was 54. I was numb the whole time I was there (Friday through the following Tuesday when we buried him). I only got emotional when a friend of my father, Les Atwood, showed up at the wake. He was one of my father�s drinking buddies and someone I had gone on a couple of camping trips back when I was just a kid. When I saw Les, I flashed back to the good memories we shared with my father and I mourned his loss for the first time since I returned home.

You hear stories of people that never knew each other prior to becoming comrades in war that become life-long friends for having survived those conflicts of several months to several years.

My Mom was everything to me. I wanted to make up for all that she had been through with my father. I flew in to take her to Red Sox, Celtic and Patriot games. To Broadway in NYC.
To American Idol concerts (the last one I even got her backstage to meet with those that she followed on TV). To the ocean and especially to come visit me during the winter time so that she could escape the cold winters of New England. Some of the most simple things in life turn out to be the most cherished. It was wonderful to go to the park down here in January. She�d be talking to her friends on my cell phone, in shorts laying back and catching some rays as I was shooting hoops.

Some gf�s thought I spent too much time worrying about my Mom from afar. I resented that. My Sister who lived only 7 miles away saw my Mom maybe once/twice a month and each time was for only a few minutes. I tried to make up for my Sister�s lack of empathy as well.

From 2002, I never missed a day of speaking with my Mom by phone. Usually 45 minutes to an hour each night. She still lived in the same house I grew up in.

I moved to Ballantyne in the middle of October. It was a really hard move. Just before Christmas my Sister (who moved in with my Mom a couple of years earlier) answered the phone
for the first time and told me Mom was losing weight. That she wasn�t eating like she normally would. My Mom never mentioned anything on the phone all those nights in the previous month.
I kind of took the parent role and told her she needed to eat like she used to do with me (I was always skinny). I asked her how much weight she lost and she thought it wasn�t too much,
but that she didn�t want to weigh herself.

When I went home just after Christmas, (January 8-14) she seemed to glow when she first saw me. She was just sitting up on the living room couch. She seemed like she had lost some weight in her face and maybe was a little more frail from the last time I was home. I held her hand for the first 4 hours or so trying to give her all my strength.

It wasn�t until I helped her to bed that first night when she came out from beneath the blankets on the couch that I realized how frail she had become. I had felt that we changed roles. That the son became the parent and the parent became the child. I knew her nightly TV schedule from North Carolina better than she did.

If there ever was a Mommy�s boy on this planet, your reading something from him now. When I left 7 days later, I went to say goodbye for now (but inside, I thought it could be the last time I ever see my Mom) she was resting in the same bedroom that I used to kiss my parents goodnight when I was 6 years old. I was positive the whole week. I gave her all my energy and then some.

But, when I went to say goodbye, I was leaning over her, staring into her eyes without saying a word. And as I continued to take in the image of this most beautiful person, my eyes welled up and then she did the simplest thing � she became my Mom again at that moment. She said; �Don�t be upset Mark. Don�t be upset� as she pulled me down to be cheek to cheek with her.

And I just said through my blurred vision of her; �But, I love you so much.� And I turned out of that bedroom.

She died 7 days later. No one ever prepared me for how hard it would be to lose one�s mom.

Mark

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About the Owner

	MARK McDERMOTT
Joined:	February 2005
Last Login:	September 2025
Ebay Id:	journey2
Website:	https://www.earthshinestudios.com
Country:	UNITED STATES
On CAF:	MARK's Want List Artworks Commented On Liked Art Site Activity on CAF

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Comments on this Artwork

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Rick W
Member Since 2017

Posted on 3/14/2018

So sorry for your loss Mark. My sincere condolences.

Matt E.
Member Since 2004

Posted on 3/14/2018

I am sorry for your loss.

E DLS
Member Since 2005

Posted on 7/9/2020

I really, really, wish I could have met her. Don't ask me why, but I just get this feeling that we really would have hit it off. I know that you will never stop missing her. But you know what? You're not supposed to. God bless.

MARK McDERMOTT
Member Since 2005

Posted on 7/9/2020

E DLS wrote:

I really, really, wish I could have met her.� Don't ask me why, but I just get this feeling that we really would have hit it off.� I know that you will never stop missing her.� But you know what?� You're not supposed to.� God bless.

Hi Eric, thank you so much for your kind thoughts. They mean so much to hear. Even though you never had a chance to meet, I'm hoping through the written words or just the simple images, those with the same lack of experience still feel that they knew of her in some small way. And maybe that can lend to an extra appreciation and thankfulness for those that are still with us.

Take care,

Mark

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