No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
—C. S. LEWIS, A GRIEF OBSERVED
The buzzing noise woke me. At first I thought it was the alarm on my phone, waking me to start the day. I tried to punch the snooze button, but the buzz continued. I finally picked up the phone and looked at the screen. It was a call from Scotland, from my sister. I bolted upright, uneasy to be getting a call at such an early hour.
“Hi. Are you guys okay?” I asked.
She was silent, then I heard her take a deep breath.
“She’s gone, Sheila.”
I wrestled to clear my mind, to comprehend her words. I thought perhaps Mum had been admitted again. She had been struggling with Alzheimer’s for the last few years and had fought a battle with bladder cancer. She’d been in and out of the hospital several times.
Frances remained silent, and as I let her words sink in, I woke into knowing. My mum had taken her final breath on this earth and her first breath in the presence of Christ.
“What happened?” I asked.
“It was very quick,” Frances said. “She didn’t feel well when she woke this morning, then she had a bit of a seizure. The doctor isn’t sure if it was a stroke or a heart attack, but she was gone before the EMS team got there.”
I forced my mind to process a response.
“I’ll book the first flight I can get,” I said. We exchanged good-byes and hung up.
I stared at the dark wall across the room. It felt surreal. I wanted to pick up the phone, dial Mum’s number, and hear her voice one more time. She had been growing steadily weaker, but I had gifts to send for her upcoming eighty-eighth birthday. I just didn’t expect to hear that she was gone.
There is something so primal about a mum. Even those who don’t have great relationships with their mothers often grieve deeply when that one person who brought them into this world is gone. The previous Christmas, I’d had an overwhelming desire to see her face-to-face, so I made a spontaneous trip to Scotland.
Frances and her husband, Ian, picked me up at the Glasgow airport, and we drove to Mum’s nursing home, Airlie House, a place for the senior members of the small church in Scotland where I grew up. My sister and I had moved Mum to Airlie several years before when it became clear that it wasn’t safe for her to live alone. She’d become forgetful and frail, and we were afraid she’d fall when she was alone. We worried she’d forget to take her medication or lock the door at night. Airlie House was our solution, a place of community where others would watch over her 24/7.
When Frances’s car pulled up to the grey, two-story stone house, I hardly waited for her to put it into park. I bolted out and proceeded to the front door to ring the bell. One of the staff let us in, and I beelined toward the communal lounge. I couldn’t wait to see the look on Mum’s face when she saw me. I found her sitting in a chair, and I knelt in front of her. Then with my arms thrown wide and a big grin on my face, I delivered a Broadway-worthy, “Ta-da!”
Mum looked at me, but she didn’t respond. Then she turned to my sister.
Mum didn’t know me.
“It’s Sheila, Mum!” Frances exclaimed. “She’s flown over to see you.”
Mum stared at me for another moment then gave that sweet smile she made when being introduced to people for the first time.
Eventually, though, she recognized me.
“Sheila! It’s so lovely to see you! How’s the weather?”
I wasn’t quite sure if she meant the weather in Dallas or outside of Airlie House.
“It’s lovely,” I said. “No rain so far.”
“Good! Don’t want you to get wet,” she said with a soft smile. “How was school?” I’d graduated from Mainholm Academy in 1974. Now it was 2015. Had she lost the last forty-one years of our lives?
I cried a lot that night. I felt robbed, lonely.
Many years earlier, my dad’s death had left Mum with three children to raise alone, but rather than trying to hold on tightly to my sister, brother, and me, she always encouraged us to follow our passions. I knew that it was hard for her when I moved to America, but she cheered me on, believing I was right where God wanted me to be. Mum and I had always been close, and we had remained that way, despite the miles.
During this visit, though, in many ways we were strangers. I wasn’t sure which year of my story she was reliving. Did she remember that I was married, or did she imagine me single? Did she remember her nineteen-year-old grandson living in the States?
I would be in Scotland only four days, so I spent as much time as I could beside my mum. There were times she wanted to talk, and times we sat without exchanging a word. One morning she thanked me for my Christmas gifts.
“Did you like them?” I asked, going along with her even though I hadn’t given her any gifts yet.
“I do,” she said. “I love the car and the dog.”
In her mind, I must have been extraordinarily generous yet misguided because Mum never learned to drive. I suppose her real memories were on shelves too high to reach.
The four days passed, and the time for me to fly back to America arrived. Mum said good-bye as if I were going to the corner store rather than across the ocean. I hugged her, not knowing it would be the last time this side of heaven.
Following my sister’s early-morning phone call, I immediately began making preparations to go home to Scotland. I booked the same flight I’d taken the previous Christmas. From Dallas to Philadelphia, then on to Glasgow, Scotland. Ian picked me up at the airport and we drove the forty minutes to Ayr, the little seaside town where I was raised. Frances was waiting at her front door. As we hugged under the slate-grey sky, tears ran down our faces. We said the things you say when your mum passes into memory, into eternity.
“I’m so glad she didn’t suffer.”
“That’s how she would have wanted to go.”
“She lived her whole life with this moment in mind.”
“She’s home.”
Everything we said was true, but all I could think was, I wish I could talk to her just one more time. I had a sickening, desperate feeling inside, as if I were trying to remember something important that was just beyond my reach.
“Let me make you a cup of tea,” Ian said. “You and Frances have a lot to talk about.”
I sank into the cream-leather sofa in their den, and Frances sat by the fire.
“Mum left a very detailed letter about her funeral service,” she said.
“She did? When did she write it?” I asked.
“A long time ago,” she said, passing the letter to me.
I had to smile. “Just like Mum, organized to the last breath.”
She’d requested two hymns—“Loved with Everlasting Love” and “Through the Love of God, Our Savior”—even specifying the melodies they were to be sung to.
“What about notifying her friends?” I asked.
Frances picked up Mum’s familiar red-leather address book.
“My fingers are numb!” she said. “I’ve called everyone in here.”
I paused for a moment before asking, “Where is she now?”
“At Co-operative Funeralcare,” she said. “They’ve been wonderful. They arranged for an announcement in the local newspaper, helped with flowers, and ordered cars for the family.”
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” I said, tears dripping into my teacup.
“I know. I can’t either.”
I wanted to say good-bye to Mum one last time before we buried her, so I made my way to the funeral parlor. I asked the funeral director for a few private moments. In the plain brown wooden casket, Mum looked as if she were sleeping, almost as if she could sit up at any moment and begin talking to me. I pulled back the satin sheet that covered most of her chest and noted her pretty pink suit, the suit Frances had chosen for her burial. Her hands were folded over her chest, left over right. And there it was. The thin, worn band of gold. Mum and Dad were married in 1953, and she hadn’t taken off her wedding ring since the day she said “I do.” It was a promise of marriage when she received it, but after my dad died, it became a promise that one day she would see him again.
I remembered the stories she’d told me of her childhood, how she could never please her father. No matter how good her grades were, he’d tell her they could have been better. I thought of the young woman who wanted to be a nurse but had to leave school at fifteen to help her mum raise three younger siblings as her dad’s Alzheimer’s set in. I remembered her glow when she told how she’d found the man of her dreams, how together they had three children. Then I considered how she lost that man—my dad—first to a brain aneurysm and then to suicide.
She’d suffered so much disappointment and pain, but she never talked about it. These were her secrets. I looked at the body, the now-empty shell that once housed all her hopes, dreams, and nightmares. I ached to know them better, but now I never would. These are the things death takes from us.
“I know this isn’t easy,” Frances said later that day, “but when you feel up to it, we need to clean out her room at Airlie.”
“Let’s do it now and get that bit over with,” I said. We put on our raincoats, ran to her car, and headed out. Frances rang the bell and waited for one of the staff to let us in. We made our way down the long corridor to Mum’s room, and the moment I opened the door, I began to sob. It was all there: the carefully made bed, her favorite armchair from home, her pink slippers, her Bible on the nightstand, her tithing envelope sitting ready for church. I looked at the pile of unread books and a half-eaten candy bar. Simple reminders that death gave Mum no warning bell. It was so familiar, but she wasn’t there anymore.
The staff made it clear that we didn’t have to hurry to clean out her stuff, but we knew that at Airlie, another family was already waiting for her room. I wiped my tears and Frances, Ian, and I got to work. We packed her clothes into suitcases, her books and CDs into boxes. We took the pictures and framed family photographs off the walls and wrapped them in newspaper for safekeeping. The final picture hung over her bed. One of Mum’s dearest friends had embroidered it for her. Two words followed by an exclamation point: Yes, Lord!
Frances looked at me, eyes tender. “Would you like to have that?” she asked.
“I would,” I said. I took it off the wall, wrapped it in a scarf I’d sent Mum a few Christmases ago, and put it in my backpack.
“Can I have this too?” I asked, holding up a stuffed rabbit.
“Why would you want that?” Frances asked.
“It was beside her pillow,” I said. “She loved this silly rabbit. Perhaps she shared her secrets with him.”
In Scotland the family members lower the casket into the ground. My brother, sister, and I were at the head, Ian and my two nephews were at the foot, and Christian and Dominic—Mum’s other grandsons—were in the middle. The rain bounced off the casket, off our overcoats and hats. We lowered it into the ground and laid her body to rest.
Her grandson John, now a pastor, wore a dark suit and carried a black Bible. He spoke these words over the casket: “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God our sister, Elizabeth; and we commit her body to the ground. Earth to earth, dust to dust.”
I looked at the crowd of people who’d gathered with us beside her grave. It was mostly family—my uncle, cousins, and Mum’s closest friends—and I thought, I don’t really know these people. I saw tears and genuine compassion and wondered what I’d missed, having rarely spent time with our extended family when we were growing up. Now I felt regret for that.
When a friend reached to steady my brother, the simple act shook me. We didn’t do that in our family. We stood alone.
I watched as the first shovel moved over the casket and felt as if the dirt was burying my mother and her secrets.
When I returned to the States, I found that my mother’s death had unsettled me in ways that didn’t make sense. Someone had pulled the rug out from under my feet, exposing all the secrets and lies I’d hidden for years—secrets and lies I believed about myself for too long.
For as long as I can remember, from the days of bruised knees and cartoon pajamas, I grew up believing that my dad’s death was my fault. What’s worse, we never talked about it. And so, as most children would, I lived with my own bare-bones version of the story, which went like this: My father had a brain aneurysm that impacted his personality; he went from being a warm, funny dad to an unpredictable stranger. When I was only five, he tried to bring his cane down on my skull. I screamed, he fell, and Mum dialed 911. Dad was taken away to the Ayrshire Lunatic Asylum. He escaped one night and drowned himself in the river, and I felt responsible for his death.
I grew up full of shame, believing I was a terrible person. I was a disgrace to the family. I was terrified of anger, and when anyone raised their voice, I became five years old again, fearing for my own life. I grew up fiercely self-protective and struggled to connect with anyone. And though I’d talked about some of these issues with a counselor, though I’d tried to deal with the shame, my mum’s recent death shook things loose in me, things I didn’t even know were there. I found myself in an unending cycle of anger and sadness. There was an overwhelming sense that we never said things to each other that might have brought deeper healing.
And this is what I’ve found to be true, though it took me years to discover it: When we don’t say the true things, the things that might free us from secrets and lies, the poison seeps out of our lives and into the lives of others. Then anger and sadness surface when you least expect it. I know this because it happened to me, and the person in my line of fire was, of all people, my son, Christian.
When we don’t say the true things, the things that might free us from secrets and lies, the poison seeps out of our lives and into the lives of others.
For their sophomore year at Texas A&M, Christian and three of his friends had rented an unfurnished house. The three other moms and I decided to split the list of basics that our boys would need. One mom found a dining-room table and chairs, one a vacuum cleaner and some basic kitchen appliances, and one a coffee table and barbeque grill. (Apparently that’s a necessity for boys in Texas.) Barry and I were to find a sofa and an American flag for the front door.
Christian decided to drive to the house a couple of weeks before the fall semester began so he could get the house keys as soon as they were available. He was very excited and asked us if we’d come with him. If you have a child in college, particularly an only child, you understand this: if your child invites you to go anywhere, you accept.
We loaded as much of Christian’s stuff into our car as we could and made the three-hour trip. We picked up the keys, the garage-door openers, and the welcome package. We drove to a furniture store and found a nice sofa; and after texting pictures of it to the other boys and their moms for approval, we bought it. Christian and Barry took me back to the house while they went off to track down the flag and a few other things on his list.
While they were gone I scrubbed the place down, emptying bathroom cabinets where the previous renters had left half-empty tubes of toothpaste and used floss. Once I had cleaned as much as I could, I went from room to room praying God’s protection and grace over these four young men. I took some oil and anointed the front doorpost. Barry and Christian returned, and we all drove back to Dallas. It was the best of weekends.
The following week we received a phone call. Christian’s bed was in stock and was ready for delivery. I couldn’t go with him—I was taping a television show that week—but Barry said he’d go. The night before they left, Barry and Christian took our three dogs for a walk. When they returned, Barry came to our bedroom upset.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Christian really hurt me,” he said. “He wants to know if I have to stay with him at the house. I was only going to help him, but he wants me to stay at a hotel. I’m not sure I’ll even go now.”
That’s when the anger and sadness spilled out across the bedroom.
We’ve spoiled this child!
He takes everything for granted!
He can’t wait to get away from us, but not until we’ve given him everything he wants!
I should have known that what I was feeling had little to do with Christian and more to do with the loss of my mum. I was still reeling from that loss and hadn’t begun to sort out all the emotions. But instead of asking myself why I felt such uncontrolled anger, instead of taking an honest look at what was going on inside of me, I took it out on Christian. A few moments later Christian came up to see if his dad was okay, but before he had a chance to say anything, I lit into him.
“You really hurt your dad! We do so much for you, and you just take it for granted. Do you know how much money we’ve spent on you?”
On and on, my words flew like bullets from an automatic weapon. After I’d said all the unkind, untrue things, it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Barry stood, speechless. Christian looked as if I had just mortally wounded him.
“I’m sorry,” Christian said, then he went back downstairs.
Silence. All I could hear was my heart thumping in my chest. I sat for a moment, the tears welling up.
Lord, what’s wrong with me? I prayed. In one moment I changed from a loving mother to a monster.
I sat in my bedroom, silent. My heart thumped and thumped and thumped. I knew I’d lost it. I had overreacted and sprayed my son with the unresolved anger and shame of my own childhood. My mind returned to an old, shameful thought: If only I hadn’t screamed when my dad tried to bring his cane down on my head, maybe my dad would still be here. It was my screams that brought my mum running into the room and set everything else in motion. I should have run instead. I should have hidden. If only I hadn’t looked at him as if he was a monster, as if I didn’t want to be around him, maybe he wouldn’t have drowned himself.
Your reaction has little to do with what’s in front of you and everything to do with what’s inside you.
These were the lies I’d told myself year after year after year, and instead of dealing with them, I let them fester, let them gain force and steam and magma until I erupted on Christian.
Have you ever found yourself in a place like this? You’re doing great one minute, loving God and people, and then you fall right over yourself the next minute? In those moments, you know your reaction has little to do with what’s in front of you and everything to do with what’s inside you.
The truth is, I lived most of my life walling off parts of myself that I thought were unacceptable, stuffing away all the fear, shame, and pain. I convinced myself that I should never talk about them, not even with God. My silence, however, isolated me and made me desperately lonely.
I grew up believing that I had to hide who I really was because that little girl was a bad girl, bad enough to make her dad want to kill both her and himself. Throughout seminary, a singing career, hosting my own television show, and years of speaking at women’s conferences, I wanted to be okay. I thought I was. Then one phone call—Mum’s gone, Sheila—threatened my sense of “being okay.” The secrets and lies spilled out in ways that hurt the people I loved most.
Perhaps there was a solution, a way forward. Maybe there was a way to live the beautiful message of Christ, even in the middle of my mess. But how?
Reflection
Have you ever found yourself in one of those moments when your reaction was out of proportion to the event that precipitated it?
I encourage you to pay attention to these reactions. Take time to sit with them. What’s happening in those moments?
Don’t condemn yourself for what’s been locked inside. The enemy of our souls condemns, but the Holy Spirit urges us to confess, leading us to healing. Read the scripture below. What does it say about facing down our inner messes?
“A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.”
—Isaiah 42:3 NIV