Fresh Paint

My preview text is:I am 44 years old, sitting in a sun-filled room surrounded by my siblings and my dad. We encircle a hospital bed in a beautiful glass-enclosed room in the house where I grew up. I feel as if I am in a bad dream as we watch my mother take her final breath—just 69 years old when the cancer took her from us. Life is put in perspective when you watch someone you love breathe for the last time.
The final week before Mom died, I spent many hours at her side just watching her sleep and breathe. My sister and I had been sleeping on the floor beside her (on inflatable mattresses) for more than a week, waking every few hours to give her morphine to keep her comfortable. It was during one of the last times we spoke as mother and daughter that we had a special conversation, perhaps one that even inspired me on many levels to write this book.
I remember it vividly: my sister and I were sitting by the bedside, talking and reminiscing. We were lovingly confessing all the times while growing up that we got away with stuff and never got caught. We were laughing. My mother laughed and joked with us and told us that because we were under “special circumstances,” we would not be grounded.
My mother then started talking about how she had been a late bloomer. She told us how she was a shy girl who developed into herself through the years; how she overcame self-doubt and learned to truly love herself and embrace life. She honestly loved her family and was truly the cornerstone of ours.
She related how she did things somewhat out of tradition to arrive at where she was in her life. She had no regrets, although she didn’t want to miss out on watching all of us as we matured. She had accepted that leaving us physically was inevitable and that her body (which was causing so much pain) was no longer necessary.
Mom believed in heaven and she was anxious to go be with the Lord. She turned to my sister and told her that they were a lot alike. That my sister too was a late bloomer and that many good things were still in store for her. I remember feeling as if they were the lucky ones, that maybe the road less traveled was really the one to be on.
She then turned to me and said, “Kelly, you always knew what you wanted from such an early age (me, who can’t make a decision), and you always did everything right. You really were a perfect daughter. You never gave us any trouble; you got good grades, got involved in everything at school and went on to college. You just knew what you wanted; you were driven to be and do and you did it. You graduated, got married to your high school sweetheart, bought a beautiful house, got your master’s degree, and have two beautiful children. You truly have it all. You have been a joy to watch and love.”
As I listened to her speak, choking back the tears, I realized she was right. I really did follow all the rules. I rarely strayed off course. I did it all the way I thought I was supposed to. So how come, deep inside, I longed for more? I wanted more.
I remember thinking, I am 44 years old; she is just 69! If I am to share her fate and only make it to 69, I have just 25 years left. I had twenty-five years to keep being the perfect daughter, the model citizen, and living the vanilla life I believed was my destiny.
Perhaps I had even fooled my own mother and had been untrue to myself. Or maybe that exact conversation, her words and her story, was actually the permission I had been waiting for, to dare to want for something more . . . perhaps at that moment she was teaching me one final lesson, and letting me know that she knew that I too would be a late bloomer after all.