Browjan's Blog: The Long Good-Bye

It is hard for me to write about the sadness of the soul, but it is a very real part of this long good-bye.

Grandma Jan didn’t talk much after I picked her up for a Mother’s Day outing. Unlike last week, when she was trying hard to communicate, yesterday she had retreated back into herself. I would talk with her, but there was little or no response.

I ordered her favorite pecan pancakes, but she didn’t want to eat them.

I tried feeding her eggs and southern grits, but she kept her mouth tightly closed and shook her head.

We picked out some cards in the gift shop. One had a gray kitty and the other a golden retriever. When we got back to the Seasons ward, I pulled out my pen and wrote on the card. She grabbed the pen from my hand and wrote, “I want to”
then she stopped as if she couldn’t finish her thought. She traced over the word “to” until it was bold and dark, but she never wrote what she wanted to do. Moments later she wrote, “I go to” and again stopped. She highlighted the word “go” over and over, but never wrote where she was going. Everything was incomplete.

Later, we sat in the big recliner and I read to her from Psalm 23.  “The Lord is my shepherd,” I knew she had memorized it as a child, but she didn’t seem to recognize it now.

“Mom, do you know these words?” I asked her. No response.

Frustrated, I vented at God. “You promised never to leave us or forsake us!”  It seemed like He had.

Words that used to encourage her, now seemed meaningless.

We sang some old hymns.  “He promised never to leave me, never to leave me alone.”

Normally, she tries to sing along. This time she listened, but no words came from her lips. Some portion of her brain is going away. Was it taking her soul, too?

“No, never alone…no never alone.”

God, what a farce.  I don’t think you can get any more alone than this.

I held her in my arms and cried. “I’m sorry, Mom. It doesn’t seem fair.”

I hugged her and held her tight for a very long time. I wondered about dying. If the physical brain is dead…how do we go on thinking in heaven? Is there a part of our soul that stays alive…that is able to reason and think and apprehend? Was Mom’s soul responding even though her mind could not?

She looked at me intently. Our eyes made contact. She smiled. And then she chuckled…a great big joyous laugh as if we shared some secret joke.

Though we were not speaking, we were communicating. We were connecting on a spiritual level. And somehow in the midst of the great sadness, I found peace in the laugh.  There is part of us that goes on knowing even though we cannot formulate the words or give voice to it. The soul still responds and knows. It gave me great comfort and hope.

, “Why so downcast O my soul, put your hope in God.” Psalm 42:5