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Mignon Ann Bloch For the Eulogy - please click here In Loving Memory - 14 April 2002 A year has passed. A the time of writing this, exactly one year ago my mother was preparing to leave this world. In about 20 minutes from now, she would have drawn her last breath and said goodbye to what was very often, especially in the last 5 years, a painful existence. She was only 51 when she passed away. I am writing this to help me remember that special time, it is an experience I will never forget. I have the photos taken with her a few days before she died beside me. It's been many months since I last looked at them. In those photos, I see a very old woman, literally skin and bones, her body covered in painful sores and lesions, trying her best to smile. I see the tears in my eyes as I tried to be strong and positive, covering my guilt and shame of the way I had treated her over the years and that I hadn't done enough for her when she became ill. I see images of my father with my mother - partners of over thirty years about to say good-bye. I see the photos of my brother and Mum. My brother had just flown in from England. It was the first time that the family had been together for over a decade - a dying wish we were able to grant her. Life isn't fair - my mother didn't deserve it - she did nothing wrong. But I remind myself that this unfairness occurs millions of times every year to many good people. Why do we have to die, and why does dying have to be painful? - it is the ultimate insult. I've read the various philosophies, religious dogma and scientific theories - all very pretty Pollyanna rhetoric. The answer to the question is - we don't know; every theory is shot full of holes. I asked my mother to come back and tell me about the "other side". She hasn't. Maybe there is none. Maybe there is and she isn't permitted to return. Maybe, as some would preach, she no longer exists - until the Day of Judgment. Maybe she doesn't want to. I wouldn't blame her. My mother was a very gentle soul and for her to return to see the world one year on wouldn't greatly impress her. We've had September 11 emblazoned in our minds, increased earthquakes, flood, fires, famine, wars and pestilence. Currently, a group of people who didn't learn from World War II are invading a weaker people. The lessons of the gas chambers, of persecution, have had no effect on them. One day soon the lessons may be revisited. History has a tendency of repeating itself. In the last year I have learned my government is treating people in need as human waste. We have so much in this country, but we send refugees out into the desert to rot. We will be held accountable. My mother would have been horrified by this. The world was a cruel place for and to my mother, she never understood or accepted it - but the cruelty never rubbed off on to her. I was very also cruel to my mother at various times - and she always forgave me. Even during her last days, I had my mind on other things when I should have been there for her 100% - body and spirit. In the last year, I have learned about Mignon the woman. As children, we rarely get to know our parents as humans - their hopes, dreams and fears - their real history. I learned that my mother had been kicked in the teeth so many times it was incredible that she held on to life for so long - I would have seen her illness as a quick escape and succumbed to it years before she did. The saddest thing for me over the past year is that I didn't get to share so many positive things that have occurred recently in my life with my mother. Through my teens and early 20's I was a practicing alcoholic/addict, a thief, a vagrant, suicidal and psychotic at times. My mother got to experience first hand my destructive nature. Now I am settled, have a wonderful partner and teenage children to share my life with, a thriving business and my sanity. My mother only got to see the beginning of all that - and not long after, she was diagnosed with Bright's disease. It wasn't fair - she put so much into me and loved me so much, she deserved to see a lot more of the good things. She deserved to have some real peace in her life, but she wasn't allowed that. She couldn't have peace in her dying stages either. The hour has passed. One year ago right now, we would have been preparing the ravaged body she left behind. Irish folk music would have been playing. The house would have taken on a strange clarity and the bushland surrounding us would have been serene. My Dad would have been coming to terms with the fact that he no longer had a partner. My brother and I no longer had a mother. But Mum would have been freed from her pain. I miss you Mum. I'm sorry. Michael Bloch |
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