I should have mailed that letter

If you have an aging parent, you know that call can come anytime. Mine came just a couple of days ago.

Mom couldn’t get up out of her chair. After some testing, the doctors determined she had bone marrow cancer. It’s incurable. Then, somewhere in the transition the next day, she contracted pneumonia. Yesterday, her kidneys began to shut down.

Now, all of her systems are failing. It’s happening all too fast.

The end, with it’s gloriously sad overtones, looks to be near.

Tonight I’m gathering things for my journey on the first flight out in the morning; There’s the shirt she bought me with the Western snaps, because she always loves the cowboy look and this is as good as I can get. And I’m packing the book that I borrowed from her — 12 years ago. I put a small vial of cologne in a zip-lock bag. She loves for me to splash it on, because it’s the same kind my dad wore when he took her out for dinner.

There’s a hollow sadness to all of these activities. My sister said she’s barely conscious, yet still, I go through the motions, just in case she gains her faculties and can smile again.

And then I pack the letter. It’s addressed to her in my awkward cursive letters on a long white envelope. You see, a couple of weeks ago, I paper clipped a few copies of some of my published pieces and put them in an envelope. I wrote a note that I unfold to read again. It’s simple. “Love you mom. Thank you for always believing in me.”

The envelope sat on the dresser for all these days. All it really needed was a stamp. There’s a mailbox at work or out in front of the house. And I work for the Post Office. I also thought about adding a few more things to it, but I never did. All those excuses now seem so silly. I should have mailed that letter.

I can see her know, in her rocker next to the window with the bluejays and squirrels squawking over the peanuts she put out for the. She would have read the note and the articles, maybe highlighted a few key points, and then added it to the box of letters she keeps at the foot of her bed.

She knows she was loved, yet still I wish for one more letter, one more conversation.

Monarch Butterfly, taken at Laity Lodge in Texas this past weekend. “Look! I am creating new heavens and a new earth,  and no one will even think about the old ones anymore.”

Maybe she’ll be able hear my voice tomorrow. I don’t know.

I last spoke to her Friday and she said this, in almost a whisper.


“I have a great God. I am not afraid.” 

Nor shall I be.

And friends, if you have a letter to mail. Don’t wait.