I am going to die tonight—I feel sure of this. The drugs they shoot into my veins no longer allow me much clarity, and it hurts even to speak these words, so I must be brief. My husband has granted me the strength for these few last sentences, praise be to Jesus Christ.
I love you. I am not mad at you for failing to answer these letters. Maybe you didn’t even receive any of them? Maybe the PO box address I have is no longer current, no one is forwarding your mail, and this last letter will never even be read by your eyes, and yet I will send it anyway, because a mother’s hope is unending.
God has told me that He will take care of you—that your work is not yet finished here on this earth.
And there is the hope of Mother Mary arranging for me to meet your former student, Ms. Portia Kane, who has promised to find you and then do her best to get you back on track. I’ve given her my crucifix necklace as proof that we have been in contact, so that she might show it to you and you will know that we have been exchanging stories about you, my sweet son.
She is a misguided naive young woman who has suffered much, but her unexpected companionship has been a great comfort in these last days of my life.
I am glad you are not here to see me in this dilapidated withered state, whispering my last words to an old crab of a woman whose handwriting is probably unreadable because it is hard to hold a pen in a claw. Ha ha!
The Crab is giving me another nasty look now, so I must cease joking, because—in all seriousness—she has been a true friend in my time of need, and I have grown to love her very much.
You are a better man than you believe you are.
I love you always and know I will see you again in heaven.
Good-bye for now.
Love and blessings,
Your mother
CHAPTER 21
March 8, 2012
To Mr. Nathan Vernon,
The purpose of this letter is to inform you that your mother has died and gone to heaven, God rest her soul.
She passed into the hands of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, in her bed on the evening of March 7, 2012, almost at the midnight hour. She had the prescribed intravenous medicine, so she did not experience excessive pain.
At Sister Maeve’s request, there will be a closed casket funeral mass given here at the convent on Wednesday, March 14, at 10:00 a.m. I’ve overnighted this letter to you and have delayed the funeral for as many days as I possibly could.
I’ve taken your needs into consideration out of respect for Sister Maeve, and that is the only reason, because, quite frankly, cutting your own mother out of your life simply because she tried to comfort you in your time of need—even if she did use what you consider to be skewed logic—was exceedingly cruel in my humble opinion, and caused her much unnecessary suffering, far worse than the cancer. Granted, I don’t know your side of things, but I do know that she loved you very much, warts and all, and in her time of need you were not here.
Perhaps her many letters did not reach you, and this is all some sort of grand Shakespearean misunderstanding, an Elizabethan tragedy, if you will. (I used to teach a high school literature class, too, a long time ago at a school for Catholic girls.) Maybe. But I am fairly certain that there has been no mistake, and rather, you have simply been weak when your mother needed you to be strong. Such is the way with men and women, and I’d be a liar if I pretended I was never before weak when others needed me to be a pillar on which many could lean. But your mother was my friend and confidante, so I am not impartial.
There is the funeral, yes, and while it would be decent of you to make an appearance, it might also help you move on from the beating your former student gave you and whatever else has you so stuck.
There is also the rest of your life, which, regardless of your religious views (or lack thereof)—make no mistake about this—is a great gift.
Life is the greatest gift there is.
With life, there is possibility.
The woman who brought you into this world was many things—jealous, proud, quarrelsome, obstinate, myopic, to name but a few of her lesser qualities—but she had a certain talent for spotting the potential in people, the goodness, if you will, that divine spark within all of us, but that for whatever reason is capable of shining a little brighter in the chosen few string pullers God calls to make His mysterious ways possible.
She talked about you incessantly, had us all praying round the clock, which we will continue to do, and insisted that God called you—gave you a gift, one that you used for many years to help others, but then stopped using.
A gift is a great responsibility, a fact that your mother knew well, and such gifts often force us to make sacrifices, be better than we think possible, rise up for the sake of others—and while employing said gifts often makes our lives more complicated than the lives of others less burdened, we are never more miserable than when we stop using our talents.
Are you happy, Mr. Vernon?
If not, when was the last time you were?
Perhaps you should resume doing what last gave you a sense of purpose and joy?
Put my religious views aside, and you will see that I also am fighting on the side of rationality here.
My condolences on the loss of your mother.
She was a woman of God, and she was my dear friend, however difficult she might have been—and believe me when I say Sister Maeve could be tiresome.
The truth is this: I will miss her deeply.
We hope you will be able to attend the funeral mass. You would be our honored guest.
“He’s real!” the sisters who have been praying so hard and long for you will proclaim when they see you, because your mother’s big talk about her only son has bestowed upon you a mythical quality.