“That’s not funny,” she said, lying
in her hospice bed, the first of several
phrases I imagined would be her final
declaration, as her labored breath caused
her sunken chest to rise and fall, each
mumbled whisper a new potential dying word.

Would “What is that awful smell?” be her
epitaph? Sulfur and brimstone, perhaps. Or
ambrosia. Or simply someone farted. “This
is the last time I put my faith in any of you,”
seemed a likely candidate, and good
advice, if too late in coming.

Her hand a loosely tied bundle of dried sticks,
she began to pick invisible somethings
from her hospital gown. One by one, she
silently passed these imaginary bits to my
wife, the daughter-in-law she had never
accepted, who patiently received them
then mimed transferring them from her
own right hand to her left with a somber
playfulness, collecting them there in case
they became valuable later, the only one
of us to actively participate in this ritual
despite their fractured relationship.

When my mother left us with no profound
final words those priceless invisible
particles were lost, drawn up in the wake
of her passing. It is only now that I begin
to recognize the import of the sacramental
parting ceremony conducted between
the mother I had so often shunned
and the wife I was soon to betray.