Paul Davis: Very difficult to kiss mother goodbye

I got to kiss her goodbye one more time. I have been kissing on her for more than 70 years, each one very special. But the last one was bittersweet.

I kissed my mom goodbye just as she was entering into her one hundred and fourth year. As I bent over her hospice bed, I reminded her that I was her favorite child. She refocused her eyes and with a hint of a grin, said, “I know who you are.” She did not, however, acknowledge that I was her favorite. Truth be known, I suspect the favorite one of her litter was my big sister Peggy who has seen after mother’s every need for the past eight years.

You know my mom. We’ve been visiting with her through this column for almost 40 years. Her 104th birthday came on Sept. 7 and she had a super party where she received star billing. She dearly loved the limelight, a good story, lots of jokes and plenty of hugs. She received an abundance of all of that.

Then just a few days later, she got sick, then sicker, then the hospital, then hospice, then congestive heart failure, then lots more kisses as she slipped away. I don’t know any woman I ever loved more. My bride? Sure, I love her with all my heart, but how do you dare to compare a mother’s love to the love of your bride. The love is just as strong and just as different.

This morning as the first cool winds of autumn slip in, it’s almost mysterious to be sitting on the porch at Lake Martin, just 10 miles from the spot where my mom met my father in the city of Dadeville. Life runs in small little circles. Some have theorized that we never wander far from our roots, our bloodlines and our heritage. They even say the average person spends his life in an area no more than 50 miles away from the place where he was born or within a 50-mile radius.

My mom was Una Mahan Davis. She married Willard Milton Davis. My grandfather Davis was once a telegraph operator in LaFayette, just up the road. My Mahan grandfather was from Clanton, just a few miles in the other direction.

I suppose every man wants a boy. Mother and Dad started off with two girls. But when the boys started coming, it was sort of hard to shut off that spigot. Six in a row.

All the children, except brother Willard – who didn’t make it through heart surgery – gathered for the Clanton funeral. That’s where mom was born and where her children were born, at her mother’s house with two nurses in starched white uniforms, freshly ironed caps held in back with bobbie pins, and the doctor. Mother showed me the health insurance policy she purchased for me the week of my birth. It covered house calls, doctor’s office visits, and, heaven forbid, hospital stays. The cost was $5 per year.

I wonder when I’ll get to kiss her again. I don’t understand nearly enough about life or death and I haven’t figured out how God measures time. I know He rewards a Godly life. Far be it for me to tell the Big Guy how to run his business. I know he promises for the faithful streets paved with gold, but for my Mom, I’d like to see just a little bit of platinum, maybe the sidewalk in front of her place, or the railing along the front porch.

She loves a front porch, just rocking, laughing and hugging. Funny, there weren’t many tears at her funeral. I fought them back most of the way, but it hurt. It really hurt deeply. Sometimes, tears you thought you had secretly tucked away in some sort of a manly way, seem to find a way to spring forth from the deepest recesses of the heart.

We had a “preacherless” funeral. Just family. Telling her life story, praying and singing. I don’t know who posed for that verbal glimpse of the woman the Good Lord described in Proverbs. He called her “a virtuous woman” and He said, “Her children rise up and call her blessed.” That’s what we did for the virtuous woman who birthed us, taught us and loved us.

But it’s hard, so very hard, to kiss your sweet, saintly, Godly mother goodbye.

Paul Davis writes a Sunday column for the Opelika-Auburn News. You may contact him at paul_davis@charter.net