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This
picture is a homage to my mother, an extremely honest woman and he/she
deigns; that it struggled a lot to create alone to me and my brother,
Waldemir, and he/she taught us the sense of the word honesty practicing
her everyday. With determination she was a warrior, a lioness and
a winner woman.
The beginnings and the moral base that she taught to me and Waldemir,
they were lived by a woman of great personality and it is the base
of our character. This is the great inheritance that she left for
us. I have a lot of pride of he/she being son of her. She committed
mistakes and successes as any human being, but he/she left the world
a little better of than found.
This certainty fills me with pride to the point of to motivate me
to paint this picture and to divide my emotions with the world. I
want to divide with all those moments in that I felt very close of
God. To the interested ones they ask that you/they read the text below.
SP,
19/12/2005. |
My
mother came tends serious problems of health since last year, going
besides by some internments hospitalares. On this year she passed April
and June hospitalized, and the last fifteen days of his/her life she
passed in INTENSIVE CARE UNIT.
For who didn't meet my mother, it is necessary to say that these were
moments of intense pain for her, because his/her larger suffering would
be to be immobilized in a bed. She was always dynamic, worker and absolutely
independent. So much is like this that, only in May, we got to convince
her that no longer it was him/her more possible to live alone and we
started to build a room for her in my brother's house.
On the 09/07/2005, one Saturday, to the 12:00 45min she suffered a cardiac
arrest. The doctors didn't get to revive her and they made official
his/her death to the 12:00 55min.
I was knowing about the death of her to the 14:00 30min when I went
to visit her and I didn't find her/it in his/her bed. When leaving seeking
her/it in other beds, the doctors noticed my movement and they communicated
me the fact. It was a shock because I still had hopes of seeing her/it
to leave the hospital and to live with my brother, although the case
of health of her went serious.
After suffocating my cry I called my brother and I was knowing that,
at the same time in that the doctors communicated me personally the
death, he was communicated by telephone by the administration of the
hospital. Just one of those coincidences of the life and of the death.
Soon afterwards, I went to the administration of the hospital to know
how to proceed burocraticamente, because he/she had never had a death
in my family. There I received the due orientations and I decided to
go to my mother's house (close of the hospital) to look for clothes
to dress her.
When returning to the hospital I found my brother and we went to the
mortuary where we were veiling our mother's body.
Here it began to happen a series of extremely positive situations that
you/they made to think me in writing this text:
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For more than one hour I, my brother and my mother were alone. His/her
body was still hot and it still didn't present the famous cadaverous
rigidity. That was still our dear Mom.
For me it was a touching farewell when, while we cried, we could
caress her as we were never able to before because, for who doesn't
know, my mother was not given to affections and caresses.
Then, we decided to change her. It was another moment in that I
felt close of my mother as never. That intimacy was something divine
and sacred where I felt extremely useful in the humility of could
serve her once again.
When leaving the mortuary, there was one for of the wonderful sun.
In the horizon there was a strip orange showing that the heat of
the life was going to bed. In the high of the sky, the moon already
visible, it began to be growing and Jupiter made him/her company
shining clear and intensely in their proximities. I think Jupiter
with his/her benevolence was already informing myself there are
some days, because he appeared very big and diamond in the sky of
the last afternoons and me was admiring him at those beginnings
of nights.
After we observe those natural phenomena, we went to the mortuary
to treat of the choice of the coffin, wake, cemetery, payments,
etc. Lá found a very cheerful employee that provided us very
funny moments, I eat when he/she entered in a coffin for my mother
to be seen would fit in him, since his/her body was of the same
size that the one of my mother. After a lot of laughters and choices,
we decided that the wake would be short, only from 9 to 11hs in
the following morning, Sunday.
Then we went back to the hospital to wait the mortuary's car that
would transport our mother's body to the cemetery of Itaquera. In
the hospital, I found with Flávia, my wife, and we accompanied
the body until the cemetery. There other curious situation happened:
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- My
mother always liked dogs, she had four simultaneously. Where she
went, he/she played with the dogs, even if didn't know them or that
you/they were angry. To the we arrive in the administration of the
cemetery a small cachorra received us with a lot of happiness and
he/she made us company the whole time. My brother played with her
for a long time. It was the best reception committee that my mother
could have had and this made us an enormous emotional good.
We hoped to finish the preparations, we asked the administration
to close the door of the room to the following morning and we said
goodbye to that cachorra that had received us with a lot of affection.
On Sunday, I, Flávia and my mother-in-law arrived at the
cemetery to the 8:00 15min. In my same schedule brother also arrived.
It was a sunny and beautiful morning and the day promised to be
of the happiness and not of the sadness.
We opened the door of the room where my mother was, we lit the candles
and we gave begin to the wake.
My sister-in-law brought a clock that my mother liked a lot and
his/her denture for us to put in her. It was an extremely hilarious
moment, before the absurd idea of we put the denture in my mother
(thing that we didn't do, clear). After my debauched laughter, that
many know, I put the clock inside in her and the denture of the
coffin.
We prayed and we said good-bye once again. Now, no longer he/she
was my mother. It was just a frozen and hard body that he/she reminded
it was my mother's home. But, in spite of that, for several times
we observed his/her calm look as if he/she was sleeping. It seemed
that finally she was resting.
Then, other outstanding situation happened: For who doesn't know,
my mother was evangelical. Me, as all know, sinner admits and unbeliever
of religions (in spite of having faith in God and Jesus).
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Surprisingly,
my deposition opened a door that I didn't imagine because, there they
were present more three shepherds (some of another church) and they
made personal depositions that you/they showed a very beautiful side
of my mother, of his/her social participation in the community organizing
her/it setting up basic baskets for the distribution to the poor and
other activities destined to the least favored.
A lot were laughed during those depositions that reminded some of
my mother's characteristics, a person of strong temperament, of difficult
conviviality, that collected the responsibility of all, but with a
positive and constructive nature. A person of accomplishments, that
did, instead of being just dreaming or criticizing.
A farewell ceremony that I would never imagine was could happen with
my mother, a bitter person and suffered. For my thankful surprise
her, that it was never given to parties, he/she made a party of cheerful
and casual farewell that it turned those light and affectionate moments.
I felt those positive effects in my heart for several days and I still
feel them when I remember those moments.
That was not a sad farewell, but a farewell with a lot of love. On
twelve o'clock, from the mortuary to the wake, she gave to me and
my brother the whole love and affection that she was not capable to
give in life. For me it was a soul lavação, a catharsis,
moments of interior resolution.
Whole Sunday I passed tends sequential and uninterrupted moments of
epiphanies that, in the somatória, I can only define as state
of grace. Paradoxically, that sunny Sunday was a day of happiness
instead of sadness. My mother had left but my cry was the cry of who
became sad because a companion had traveled to a better world, as
well as we cried when our beings will live at other countries but
they will have a better life. She finally was resting and that had
enough. I didn't get to have that cry selfish, very common when he/she
gets lost some thing. No, that sadness that pressed my heart served
just to remember that she was more close to God and it had accomplished
his/her mission. They were intense moments, of thankful memories and
sincere and disinterested love.
These whole moments left me such a strong and positive influence that
you/they caressed and they caress my moments of longing as if my mother
was caressing myself.
This week that passed was the time of the bureaucracy, of putting
the things in order. The moments that my commitments allowed me I
used shuffling and ordering their documents, pictures, belongings,
etc. Who already passed for that knows of what am speaking. Each small
detail reveals parts of a life or it reinforces the impression that
we have of that person's character. There is also the sensation surreal
for the which our brain starts when facing the logic game and emotion
(for which all pass) where I know that I will never again see her
but my emotional one refuses to accept such simple and relentless
reality. It is a game that in the clue slightly stunned but, amid
those profits, the sensation that it comes it is me the one of tenderness.
It is not the loss feeling but of comfort; it is not the revolt feeling,
but gratitude.
It is as if my mother had kept all his/her love to give me in the
day of his/her final farewell. It is as if I had gotten a present
that will last long forever.
Still today, all the day I pass thinking about her, remembering good
and bad passages that we had. I have not been stopping doing anything
day by day in mine but his/her presence is constant, I don't eat a
shadow, but as a good and protecting company.
I know that in next days and months I will cry of longings (a big
one becomes friends said that it passed some years living moments
where he/she regretted the mother's absence), but I also know that
it won't be the bitter cry of those that don't get see the good side
of the life.
Thinking about the two days of farewell that my mother provided me,
I conclude that God was very generous with me and with my brother
and the proof is the sensation of well to be that it still accompanies
me when reminding of my dear Mom (yes, with M maiúsculo).
I am sure that is this sensation that will accompany me for the rest
of the life. It is true that I feel a small sadness in my heart, but
I also feel a positive sensation telling me that of the conviviality
with her, for more than 50 years, the word that stays is: It was worth!
A hug to all,
SP 07/17/2005
Walter Miranda |
