In the Other Room

A few days before my mother died of cancer, I was having a particularly difficult day.  I felt completely helpless and inadequate in light of my mother’s situation.  When she fell asleep and was resting in the afternoon I went into my study, sat in a chair beside the window and wept.  I felt not only a deep divide between my mother in the other room and me in this room but between her resting quietly and my anxious concerns.  The words “in the other room” came to me as I thought of this separation and the separation that was near at hand.  I picked up pen and paper and began writing a poem as the words came.  Over the next few days I added to the poem.  Below is the poem I shared with the people gathered for her funeral the following Sunday.  (Note: a change in the words from “I” to “I, we” moves the poem from my personal experience to embrace the experience of my two brothers and family members who, though were not able to be present physically, were there in every sense and in their own way was experiencing what I was experiencing.)

In the Other Room

In the other room

she breathes quietly

wrapped in blankets to ward off the approaching cold

wrapped in love

her only sure armor against her foe.

In the other room

she rests, she sleeps

while here I sit in this room

anxious about what to do

unsure if anything I do will help.

In the other room

she lets life happen

not by giving up

but by embracing what is here

and what is coming.

In the other room

she knows but doesn’t want me to know

while here I sit in this room

knowing but not wanting her to know.

In the other room

she looks  to me, to us for strength, for courage,

for all that she is physically losing

while in this room

I, we are but little children

frightful against the approaching unknown.

In the other room

Jesus comes

her darkness gives way to light

fragments of uncertainty become rocks of assurance.

In the other room

he invites her into  the Other Room.

In the Other Room

she lives

and laughs

and loves

and faces that had become only a memory,

images on photographs long ago taken

are once again real

in the Other Room.

In the Other Room

resurrection

and life

and joy overflowing.

While I, we in this room

carry within our souls

the marks of her constant sculpting

the wounds of lessons taught and only sometimes learned

her wisdom we are still mining

and her love that is as eternal as God

In this room

I, we carry a part of her with us

still making us who we are

still shaping us into who we should be

and this will continue

until that time when I, we, too, shall be invited

into the Other Room.

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