☀️ In memoriam: Honoring "Mama Cole"

Oh, when you hold my pain . . .

With my mother, who died today

At 3:00PM this afternoon, my mother made her passage to the stars.

Her name was Carol Ann (Smith) Cole. But at her care facility, she was affectionately called “Mama Cole.” She took care of everybody.

Mom had become critically ill late on Wednesday. Getting the news, I drove cross-country from South Dakota to North Carolina, reaching her bedside on Friday night.

I kept precious vigil with one of my brothers and his wife as Mom labored out of this life. What started as a death watch became a Holy Time-Out-Of-Time. It was a Great Wait for The Mysterious Next, into which it was Mom’s turn to pass.

She was ready. But, after I arrived, it took her around twenty more hours to work herself free.

After her last breath, we who loved her lingered. No hasty goodbyes in the Holy.

When we were ready, I covered Mom’s body completely with the hospital’s white blankets, tucking her in as she’d done her babies. Her grandbabies.

But I left the blankets loose around her. No need for tight tucking now.

How, I wondered, could such a significant presence in my life look so small, shrouded in that bed?

I helped the nurses wash Mom’s 84-year-old body. To my recollection, it was the first time in my life I’d ever seen her unclothed.

The nurses sheathed her body in a thin, white pouch. I closed the long zipper, head to toe.

I escorted Mom’s body down to a special section of the hospital morgue. As an organ donor, she’d be “Mama Cole” even beyond the end, supporting the lives of others.

There in the morgue, separated from her by a cold metal door, I had one last private moment with the remains.

Sixty-two years ago, she’d brought me into this world. And because she’d lived long enough—had perhaps even waited long enough, in that strange way the dying do—today I’d had the privilege of helping her into The Next World.

Already she has mastered the art of being There, yet still here.

---

As it happened . . .

I usually schedule Daily Boosts weeks in advance of the day they appear on The Raft. That was the case with “World, O World”—the Daily Boost that you received on Friday.

Let me repeat: I prepared Daily Boost #840 a month ago. But it just happened to reach you the same day I reached Mom.

It reached me, too. I was able to play this wondrous music as we kept vigil in Mom’s hospital room.

Today I’m giving it to you again—for love of my mom, and for love of all those we cherish so deeply, yet one day must let go.

---

Daily Boost #840

WORLD O WORLD
Jacob Collier

World, O world
You've been my home
Home
Home
Now it's time for me to go
Give me (the) wings to fly home
Sun did rise and sun did fall
You've been with me through it all
Always keeping by my side
Always by my side

Love, O love
You've been a friend
Love, O love, oh
Now the road must reach an end
Come, it's time to go
Time is swift to come to pass
Nothing stays and nothing lasts
Always moving on and on
Always moving on

Oh, and when I call your name
I think I love again
I lay my world upon your hands again
Oh, when you hold my pain
I feel my fire again, ooh
You are my soul
Oh, take me home

Until we meet
Until we meet again
Until we meet again
Until we meet again
Goodbye
Until we meet again, until we meet again
Meet again
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

(My thanks to Joseph Collier and the Aeolians of Oakwood University.)

“How Dark the Beginning,”
a poem by Maggie Smith

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