She’s sputtering, grunting, pushing out low, wild-animal growls. Her face squeezes fast and tight as if she’s been unexpectedly punched. She grunts again and throws her chin up to the ceiling. Her mouth hangs open. Drool drips from her bottom lip onto her blue shirt.
Joe is eleven. He’s disgusted, ashamed, repulsed. He turns his head and looks away. He wants to leave.
The pose begins when you want to get out of it. Quiet your reactions. Quiet your thoughts. Quiet the struggle. Witness and breathe.
Stay in the Pose.
Joe lies in Dead Man’s Pose and begins to relive the same vivid memory of his mother, but it shifts, as if God has reached into his brain and rotated it a few degrees.
Not like that. Like this.
His mother’s wheelchair, the seat belts, her blue short-sleeved shirt, the yellow bracelet, the growls, the drool. Instead of looking away, Joe meets her eyes with his, and he sees his mother’s eyes smiling at him. Her face winces, and she grunts, but now Joe’s eyes are connected to hers, unafraid, and the guttural animal sounds become human, intelligible.
“Eh ew.”
Thank you.
His mother is thanking the nurse for feeding her lunch. She’s thanking his father for brushing her hair. She’s thanking Joe and Maggie for the pictures they drew for her.
And before they leave for another week, his mother gathers all the strength she has to produce a sharp groan.
“Eh uh ew.”
I love you.
The last words Joe heard his mother say, words he didn’t comprehend until now, were Thank you and I love you. Gratitude and love.
Joe replays the memory, and he sees his mother again and anew. Unable to walk or feed herself, unable to defend her reputation from the rumors that she was a drunk and a sinner and a bad mother, unable to live at home or hug her kids or tuck them into bed at night, she’s smiling with her eyes at Joe. In the end, his mother wasn’t just a living corpse waiting to die in a hospital. She was a wife and mother who loved her family, grateful to see them and still love them for as long as she could.
Tears stream down Joe’s temples, wetting his hair as he remembers his mother, no longer the grotesque monster he despised and blamed and was ashamed of. She was Ruth O’Brien, his mother, a woman who had HD through no fault of her own, who gave her family love and gratitude when she had nothing else to give.
After all these years, he sees his mother. Remembered.
I love you, Mum. Please forgive me. And Joe’s heart swells, knowing it’s already done. He is loved and forgiven.
And, like a lightning strike, there is his example. His mother before him. The lesson that she passed down for him to pass on to his children—the courage to face every breath with love and gratitude.
“Okay, Dad. Let’s wiggle our fingers and toes. Stretch your arms up overhead, and when you’re ready, come to a seated position.”
Joe and Katie are now sitting cross-legged, eyes open, seeing each other in the mirror. Katie’s face is wet with tears, too.
“Let’s bring our palms together at our hearts.”
Joe copies Katie. They sit for a moment in silence, in prayer.
“The light within me bows to and honors the light within you. Namaste.”
“Namaste,” says Joe, smiling at his daughter in the mirror. “I love you, Katie.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
“Thank you, sweetie.”
Love and gratitude.