*_The_Mother_*
Name: Maureen "Mo" Dodge
D.O.B: Feb. 22, 1955
D.O.D: Oct. 2, 2005
Relation: Mother/Deceased
Today had been the first time I had seen my mother in six years. I would have hoped for a less tear filled occasion. I had left early in the morning with my father, heading towards Hale, upstate Michigan. It was a two and half hour trip which was more than what was needed to dwell of the news I had heard after coming home, consumed in sweat, from a Coheed & Cambria concert:
"I have bad news," softly spoke my father.
"Okay," I replied.
"We lost your mother earlier today." I sat silent for a moment before responding, taking time to fully understand his words.
"It's hard to lose something you never had," were the only words I could find to fit the current situation.
So instead of working Monday morning stock, we went to the funeral home in Hale to figure out the paper work and funeral funds, etc. Seeing I'm the next of kin and I'm over 18, I was able to make all the decisions. She had wanted to be cremated, and spread in Mackinaw, so therefore Pat and I had signed the consent. Along with that had signed other forms, nothing important besides legal forms and the death certificate.
Just before the legal aspects began, I asked people for time alone with my mother. I didn't say a word. Just cried. Cried more tears than I have in my entire life. Just cried.
Gale. The woman my mother has been with for the last four years of her life. Where she had spent the last four years, lived in Swartz Creek. Under twenty miles away resided the woman I never knew, and never once did we happen to cross paths. It's sickening when I think about how many times I have possibly drove by her home and never knew it. Not knowing that taking a mistaken turn into a drive way to turn around could actually lead me to my mother. Something so close and yet indescribably distant.
This woman Gale, also had no idea anything about the family. My mother, Mo, as she was often called as a nickname, never spoke of the family. Only knowledge she had was that Mo had a brother who died of cancer, that she had a sun, myself, and that Patrick, her brother and my uncle lived on Hill Rd. Which is how she found a way to get in contact to tell the family that their relative had passed on. She had no idea what my name was, though she knew I existed. It's heart breaking, eternally heart breaking that I was never ever associated with my mother, not even after how long had been together had she known anything. My heart broke into thousand more pieces to know that my mother would do that.
How she went? Though it's not indefinitely concluded, they, they being the funeral home and detectives/officers say that she had been drinking while watching 'the game' and seeing as she has always had horrible back problems she had taken an unknown amount of pain killers and had died in her sleep, without pain. She was found at the trailer which her and Gale frequented in Tawas, face down, hence the distortion in her face.
So for six years I've wondered where my mother was, how she was, and I wondered when the day would come that I could see her face to face and tell her how much I wished that I knew her. Unfortunately that day will never come now, for Sunday, October 2nd, she passed. Along with her passing passes the chances I could have had, the chances I had to regain communication and regain a mother in my life. I'll never be able to say, "I hate you for not being there,""I hate you for neglecting the fact that I do exist,""I hate how I'm nothing to you," because she's not able to hear those questions and finally answer me. I'll never be able to move on fully from this, there will still be a part of me that wants to know what she felt, a part of me that want to have all the explanations in the world so I can finally put another heart breaking mystery to rest.
I love you, always and forever.
:garlen: