Goodbye, Mom Eichler

My mother-in-law, Pauline Eichler, died late in the afternoon today.  All week we have been at her bedside, watching her final struggle with Parkinson's disease.

In less than five months of this year, Ed and I have lost my Dad and now, his Mom, our two remaining parents. I'm feeling especially motherless and fatherless in these hours after her passing. It's an emptiness, a sharpness, an ache that I will have to deal with in the days and months ahead.

I came home from Wisconsin in May after my Dad's death, wanting to be with my mother-in-law. "She's all we have left, " I told Ed as we headed out on the long drive between Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and Huron County, Michigan, a drive that we have made many, many times in our married life together.

Pauline already was not understanding some things and we are pretty sure that she did not understand that my Dad was gone.

This has been a precious week of waiting and watching with Mom Eichler. Tomorrow will be just another day for most of the world. But for many of us -- children, spouses, siblings, grandchildren, great grands, friends -- it will be the first day without the woman who meant so much to many of us.

The sun will rise in these few days ahead and we will be saying, gently saying, "Goodbye, Mom."

Copyright 2013
Wanda Hayes Eichler


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