Novela da jornada da restauração de Yvonne ❤️ Capítulo 4

Chapter 4
“A Shake of the Head”

At the time, I was probably very angry, but every time I think of my mother now, I cannot remember anything bad and even the bad things she did, like when she spanked me the one time that I could not sit for days on end without it hurting. I now, years later, remember her and even these once monumental events I think of fondly and with a smile of nostalgia. These memories are of a time that I still had a mother to call my own. I am thankful she said No to my getting married because it gave me two more precious years of living under the same roof with her before she passed away one evening, only 3 weeks before I got married.

Before I get to that devastating night, let me tell you exactly why she said no and how as an adult myself now, I can see how she did exactly the right thing.

Ian stayed about 45 minutes drive from me and so we alternate weekends with our parents. One weekend I would visit his parents, and the next, he would come to visit me at my mother's. One of these weekends was the one that we were going to ask her if we could get married.

We were waiting to be alone with her because our house was always filled with visitors, and some would sleep over from time to time. I let Ian know that this was the perfect time, and when I took his hand, it was so cold and sweaty because of his nervousness. If you did not know him very well, you could rarely read his mood from his facial expressions; his hands, on the other hand, were a dead giveaway to how he felt.

With cold and sweaty hands (and me with a knot in my stomach), we went into the now empty living room that contained only my mother, which looked larger than life at that very moment. I already made her some coffee, and as we sat with her, she, of course, knew me better than anyone else, so she knew there was something brewing. When Ian finally scraped together the courage, his words were: “I love your daughter very much, and I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I promise to take care of her. May I please marry Yvonne?”

It was probably only 5 seconds before my mom answered, but those seconds could just as well have been an eternity. Then she looked at us, shook her head, and said, “No, not now. You are too young to make this decision. You can get engaged, but you will not get married until Yvonne is 21.”

To our young, naive minds, two years seemed like a lifetime, but let me tell you, that I would gladly give up those two years again, knowing I was able to spend them with my mother. The two years dragged on, based on how I felt, but it was exciting as we started planning our wedding, which would take place exactly four months after my 21st birthday. We were all very excited, and my mother and Ian’s parents also enjoyed planning our wedding. This would be the last of my mother’s five children getting married, her little baby leaving the nest. For Ian, it was their first born son getting married. So for both sides, it was a significant reason to celebrate while simultaneously dreading for both families.

Then came that devastating night, three weeks before my dream was to come true—marrying the man of my dreams. What I am about to tell you now, I seldom talk about it to anyone. Although I am at peace with her death now, it still hurts to talk about it.

For most of my life growing up, until the day that my mom passed away, I shared a bed with her. I had my own room at times, especially when my brothers and sisters were grown up and out of the house, but I still slept on the same bed with my mom. I, of course, never admitted it to any friends because what would they say? We keep these to ourselves, don’t we? :):):)

After her passing, when I look back, I can see how we should have seen that there was something wrong with her, but she never liked going to the doctor (even though she worked at a hospital herself), and she never complained about anything.

This night however, she asked me to rub her back because she said, it felt like there was wind stuck there. I clearly remember that I was already lying down, and I sighed because now I had to get up and rub her back. Then my mom said, “I think you should wake your brother-in-law to take me to the hospital” at that time, my sister and her husband were living with us.

This woke me up for sure because this is not something my mom would do. She never cried wolf, so I got up, woke my brother-in-law, and we took her to hospital.

Although I was worried, I could not fathom that this would be her last night on earth. I never even considered the possibility. In my mind, we were just taking her to hospital where she will be for a few days, get medicine, and there we go, all good!

When we got out of the car, it was a summer evening. What I could clearly remember is that the air felt like nothing. It was not cold; it was not hot. It was as if nature was neutral and wanted no part in what was about to happen. Even now, nights like this remind me of my mom.

At the emergency room, the doctor told us she had a heart attack; they don’t have a specialist to help her, so they would stabilize her and transport her to another hospital to help her. We were told to wait in the car and follow the ambulance to the new hospital. Still, I did not consider for a moment that when I said goodbye to her there that it would be the last time I spoke to my mother.

We waited in the car, and I had no idea how much time had passed. Back then, there were no cell phones, so we could not phone my sister and tell her what was happening. We waited, and then the doctor came out and walked up to us while we were waiting in the car. From the moment I saw him make eye contact with my brother-in-law and noticed the doctor shaking his head ever so slightly, I knew what had happened.

It boggles the mind that something as innocent as a shake of the head can change your life so irrevocably—in a way that cannot be reversed or changed, or recovered. I cannot really remember much after that and the weeks leading up to my wedding, and yet, there are a few things that stood out to me that I’d like to share with you.

The first thing was a mended relationship. Ian and my sister had not spoken for so long because of something that had happened. It seems that Ian said something to my sister’s son, and so for months, they did not speak to each other. I called him that evening, 11 pm - I might add, and he drove to our house in the middle of the night. I remember him walking up to my sister first and comforting her, and with that, their relationship was mended—a bridge repaired, and he became a brother to her that’s remained to this day.

Another thing I remember is at the graveside, I was standing next to Ian, and up until then, my then future in-laws stayed in the background because they respected that our family needed this time to grieve. As I was standing at the graveside, my mother-in-law pushed through from the back, through all the many people there, just to comfort me —knowing the pain I was going through and there, another relation was formed and grew stronger over the years until she became like a mother to me.

At that moment, my in-laws “adopted” me, and they also my own siblings as their own and would, over the years, have many get-togethers at their home with all of us. Two families came together as one through this tragedy that befell my siblings and me, making us orphans (even though we were all grown up, that is exactly how it felt losing our only parent, our mother).

Now,  looking back, I could see how all of this came together, but back then and over the years that followed, all I could feel was PAIN, HURT, and ANGER, and— I had no one else to direct these feelings towards except for Ian who became both my life-line and my punching-bag all at the same time.

This was the time that God also became just another “myth” to me. Someone who cannot be trusted, because what God could ever call Himself “loving” but not allow a bride to have her own mother there on her wedding day?

I do believe that things like this, tragically sad, bad things that happen to us through no fault of our own, are one of the top, most important reasons why we lose our faith in God as I did. My hope is to explore this further with you. Please stay with me on this journey. Please stay with me until the end of this book so you can decide for yourself if I am totally misguided or may have a point.

“Here on earth, you will have many trials and sorrows.”