I buried my mother and took the train back home

While it’s been less than three months, it already feels like a lifetime.

My mother spent five weeks in my home on hospice. It was the most challenging—and most beautiful—time of my life.

End of life encompasses so many things, and everyone deals with it differently. I am still processing. And yet, what I can say with confidence and gratitude is this: I served her well.

Her strength and her grace have given me the peace I need to stay centered and grounded, even as others act out in unimaginable ways.

My mother was always a practical and pragmatic woman. While she knew and accepted that death was inevitable…

She fully embraced and lived life until she took her last breath.

The body knows how to die. It is the mind that must learn how to let the spirit go.

Because of the fear and stigma surrounding death, too often, loved ones resist—or act out—to try and escape the inevitable.

And yet, there is a peace beyond language—one that rises in the beauty of holding space between two worlds.

In surrendering to what we cannot control, we create room for curiosity to take the place of fear and dread.

I have seen firsthand the harm that comes when we resist this mystery—when we try to impose our will on a process we were only meant to witness.

Death is the final expression of the life we lived.

It is my firm belief that we should support and hold space in ways that honor the wishes and intentions of those in their final days.

It helps, then, to think about what we want in the end—and to communicate that clearly and often, long before the time comes.

While we cannot predict when or how we will leave this world, we can share our hopes and desires for what a beautiful death would look like for us.

I was grateful I was able to create a safe space for my mother—one in which she felt seen, heard, and honored during the last leg of her journey.

We were able to talk about what she was experiencing.

What some labeled “delirium” was, in truth, her experience of being between two worlds.

She found comfort in my ability to give language to what she was feeling as the veil thinned.

She also comforted me.

She mothered me with a simple, all-encompassing question:
“It makes you sad?”

My answer, “Yes.”

Then we sat together in a love and knowing that required no words.

As the time of transition draws near, less is said.
And yet, if you’re willing to listen in new ways, there is so much more to be understood.

As I continue to reflect on the lessons this experience has given me, I feel a greater depth in my work as a Storyteller and Dream Doula.

The call to give birth to your dreams and write the next chapter now carries a deeper sense of wonder and appreciation.

While much about death feels final, it is more transition and opportunity than it is an ending.

When our time comes to leave this world, there is nothing more to say or do.

Often, it is pain and regret that shape the choices and actions of those left behind—stirring conflict and separation.

When in truth, the gift for those of us who remain is the power to choose how we will live from now until our own time arrives.

We have the opportunity to draw from our story as we write the next chapter.

What legacy do you wish to leave?

What impact will remain after you’re gone?

Epilogue

And why the train?

My mother called and asked me to come get her. She was adamant that staying where she was no longer felt right.

When I went to check on her, we made plans for her to come stay in my home.
She looked at me and said, “I just want to see my home one more time.”

She didn’t want to fly—with everything going on with the air traffic controllers—so we agreed: we’d take the train.

I booked tickets for a sleeper car for our pilgrimage back to Pittsburgh.
Alas, it wasn’t to be.

By the time she arrived at my home, she was so weak and frail that she entered hospice three days later.

With the support of our hospice team, she regained a bit more strength and lived another five weeks.

That time was so precious—and so needed—for both of us.

After she transitioned, I honored her wishes and held her funeral in Pittsburgh.

It was beautiful.
And I know she was pleased.

I took the 22-hour train ride back home to Savannah in homage to my mother.

As the sun rose over the brooks and rivers of Pennsylvania, I found solace gazing through the window of my private car.

And in the gentle rocking of the train along the tracks, I was reminded:
I am still cradled in my mother’s love.