A Mother’s Death
My mom died this weekend.
Those are the hardest words I’ve ever had to write.
As I typed them, the news broke that the U.S. has officially surpassed one million deaths from COVID.
Many of them were mothers and fathers. I now join the millions of Americans who are grieving the recent death of a parent, one of the most emotionally difficult and universal of human experiences. I hope you will indulge me for writing about my mother, and how her passing has already changed me. This column would not exist were it not for her love of learning, education, and news.
Natalia de Sandoval de la Torriente was born on June 4, 1931, a child of great privilege, in Havana. By the time she was 29, that privilege had vanished. She and my father, Antonio González-Mora, with little to their name, became part of the first wave of voluntary exiles from the Cuban Revolution, leaving the island in July of 1960, a year and half after Fidel Castro took power. She never returned to her beloved homeland.
Like so many other Cuban refugees, they struggled to make a new life for their rapidly growing family. They left Cuba with two toddlers and an infant. Soon they would have three more kids, six of us, in only 9-and-a-half years.
She and our family thrived even though my dad’s career took us to live in three countries, two continents, five cities, and at least 15 homes. After her death, one of our friends described my mom beautifully, saying “she flowered wherever they put her.”
A charming, elegant, generous, and lovely woman, she dedicated much of her life to raising her six children, whom she often introduced by the number of their birth order. Her kids often wondered if it was easier than remembering all their names.
My mom is seen here celebrating something on May 15, 2021. She passed away on Saturday, May 14, 2022.
I have no idea what she was celebrating when I took the picture above, three years before her passing, but it’s perfect to remember my mom and her spirit. I probably shouldn’t use “my” because she was a mother not only to her six children, their spouses, and 12 grandchildren, but to many of our friends, and to countless people she helped with her endless charity.
Beloved by many and with deep Catholic faith, she threw herself into a wide range of philanthropic activities, volunteering with charitable institutions and quietly helping many individuals in need.
She exemplified what for Cuban Americans is our “greatest generation.” Last year, not long before her 90th birthday and needing 24-hour care, she insisted on continuing to send money to the various charities and individuals she’d helped support for years. I gently told her it was time to stop and let people take care of her.
My mother celebrates with her six kids and three of their spouses at her 90th birthday lunch on June 4, 2021.
Last week, a woman my mother had helped and whom none us knew, brought flowers and her special-needs daughter to visit. She had no idea my mom had become severely ill, but came, as she apparently had many times before, to express her love and gratitude. Another told us “Natalia not only helped me with money, she was there to console me and give me advice in life’s toughest moments.”
We wish she could console us for the void left by her own passing.
As I aged and saw the deaths of my dad, grandparents, and close friends, I had come to think that dying suddenly in one’s sleep was the best we could hope for. I’d also become somewhat cynical about people who spoke about “celebrations of life,” knowing the inevitable grief that comes with loss.
My mom, again, has taught me different lessons. Even though she struggled physically for years, and dementia ravaged her lively mind, she still lived joyfully and was thrilled every time anyone came to visit.
Her gradual decline, without great suffering, gave all her children and grandchildren the chance to often tell her how much they loved her, and she never missed the opportunity to tell us how much she loved us.
And her life most definitely deserves celebration.
When interviewed for an upcoming book about aging, she was asked if she would change anything. She said she would not, because she had the peace of knowing she had done things well and that she had been happy. She should have added that she loved greatly and was greatly loved, which, in the end, should be life’s true measure.
Greatly loved, in part because of how she treated everyone, no matter who they were. A friend’s beautiful note to us, describing what my mother meant to her, quoted the saying that “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Sadly, a cold turned into pneumonia ten days ago, and her almost 91-year-old body started shutting down.
She died Saturday night, with five of her kids, three of her grandchildren, and two of her daughters-in-law in the room. She just faded gently, with her breathing slowing until it stopped.
The picture of her cheering is especially appropriate because the hospice nurse told us we had won the lottery because it is very rare to see people die in peace surrounded by family.
What I should have told him is that her children won the lottery more than half a century ago, when she had us all as her children.
Cover photo: My mother laughs with some of her grandchildren at her 90th birthday party on June 4, 2021.