I’ve always been an odd duck in my family, so when I informed my siblings that I wanted to bathe my mom’s body and prepare her for burial, they just shook their heads and said, “That’s fine, just don’t expect us to be in the room.”
We discovered mom was dying after she fell the day after her birthday in 2005. She went to the hospital with 2 black eyes from where her glass frames smashed into her face as she hit the floor. She had no major injuries from the fall, but her examination and tests for what may have caused her to fall, led to an unexpected discovery that she had colon cancer which had metastasized to the liver. After 2 weeks of intense pain and high fevers, mom died.
After everyone left her room, I got a basin and filled it with soapy water. The hospice nurse joined me as I began to bathe the body of the very woman who brought me life. I washed her face, her arms, her hands, her breasts, her belly, her genitals, her legs. The nurse gently lifted her up on her side and held her so that I could wash her backside. As I brought the wash cloth down her back, my younger sister, Kari, walked into the room. Standing next to the nurse she held on to mom’s upper body, until I was finished. Then she and the nurse gently laid mom down. I lifted her from the other side, handed the cloth to Kari and asked her to wash mom from that side. She handed the cloth to the nurse and said, “I’ll help you hold her.” As she reached the foot of the bed, she stopped in her tracks and said “I Can Do This!” She then turned around and took the cloth from the nurse. Tenderly, she washed the body of our mom.
After mom’s body was clean, I brought in a basin of warm water. I infused it with the essential oil of rose. And then we used this fragrant water to rinse and bless her body.
When we were finished, we were preparing to wash Mom’s hair when my sister, Jill, walked in. When she discovered what we were doing, she said, “I used to do Mom’s hair every week. I can do that.” So with the help of the nurse and Kari, Jill washed Mom’s hair. Then she and Kari blow dried and curled mom’s hair. They put on her favorite lipstick and we dressed her in a pair of silk pajamas that Mom had been saving for a special occasion.
When we were finished, the rest of our brothers and sisters walked into the room and stood around Mom’s bed. Tears flowed as we gazed on this woman, who looked like herself for the first time in 2 weeks. This healing image of Mom replaced the images of her suffering. It is our final memory of our beloved mother.
As I reflect on this experience, I am struck by Kari’s courage. When Spirit beckons, the easiest response is to step back to a safe place. Our insides quake and we think we cannot possibly do this thing we are called to do. We run to a safe place… food, alcohol, facebook, computer games, television, anything that insulates us from the voice of our spirit calling us into life. The easy thing would have been for Kari to hold onto Mom. She didn’t. She stopped. She moved into her courage. And with a courageous, “I Can Do This”, she followed the voice of her Spirit