The seasons change; a few words; a blessing

DIXON, Ill. – There’s a rise on Interstate 39 over a county road where the highway points north from Bloomington-Normal.

From the top of the bridge, some of the world’s flattest land spread out before me in a blaze of harvest colors, like an oversized autumnal quilt that seemed to stretch all the way to the next topographical recess, the Illinois River valley at LaSalle-Peru, 54 miles up road.

Squares of brown, tan, green and gold were stitched together by clumps of trees, township and range, at their corners. A yellow sun illuminated a sparkling blue sky, interrupted only by some low clouds in the farthest corners of the panorama.

As I steered north, the change of seasons became more pronounced. Leaves were dryer and more colorful. By the time I turned off I-39 at Troy Grove (home of Wild Bill Hickok, the sign reads) some trees were afire with orange foliage. A combine moved smoothly along in just about every field I passed.

Winter always arrives earlier in my hometown of Dixon than it does in Cincinnati, obviously. And no more than this year, my mother’s last.

My sister-in-law Kathy met me in the front yard of Mom’s house. Mom had just gone to sleep. Give her an hour, Kathy said. A few minutes later, after we had walked to the backyard, the nurse came to the back door.

“Betty saw Mark pull up,” she said. “She is very excited.”

“Are you ready?” Kathy asked. “Your mom looks a lot different than the last time you saw her.”

“I’m ready,” I said as I pushed through the screen door.

As I rounded the corner into the living room, my eyes followed the frame of the frail body tucked beneath the blue blanket. It was pulled up to her neck.

Mom’s big blue-gray eyes met me. They opened wide. She smiled.

“Mark, you made it,” she said.

“Of course I did.”

I kissed her forehead and stroked what remained of the brown hair on the top of her head. She coughed and smiled again.

“How are your little ones?”

“Good, but they’re not so little any more. Emma made a card for you. She wanted me to give it you as soon as I got here.”

“Grandma Betty. I love you. Get well soon. Love, Emma.”

“Look, Mom,” I said. “Can you see the little heart she drew?”

“It’s beautiful,” she said.

I sat in a folding chair beside the hospital bed. Mom closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

I wouldn’t get many words for the next few hours. She was in and out of sleep.

We turned the Mets-Dodgers playoff game on television. I asked Mom which team she rooted for.

“Mets.”

She honored her late husband’s wishes of disliking the Dodgers. Dad was a huge Reds fans. That NL West rivalry from the 1970s lived, 30 years after the fact, in my mother’s house.

Treatment for her inoperable lung cancer has taken most of Mom’s hair. She coughs a rumbling cough. She has trouble focusing her eyes.

Just a few minutes ago, after my sister and brother-in-law left to go across town to their house, and Kathy stepped outside to make a phone call, I had a few quiet moments with Mom in the darkened living room. The nurse had just checked her and went back to the den.

I sat down in the folding chair.

Mom opened her beautiful, big eyes and smiled.

“Mom, do you know how much I love you?”

She shook her head up and down to say yes.

“Do you know that I thank God every day that you are my mother?”

She shook her head again and said, “Yes. Mark, you and I have always appreciated each other.”

She closed her eyes, as if fatigued by the short conversation.

Her legs moved gently, almost in rhythm, beneath the covers.

“Now I know where I get my fidgety feet from,” I said.

She smiled and coughed through a chuckle.

She brought her right hand out from beneath the blanket.

I took her right hand in mine and rubbed the back of it with my fingertips.

I softly ran the fingers of my left hand through the hair on the top of her head.

She smiled again.

“You used to do this to me when I was upset,” I said.

She pulled her right hand away. I put my forehead down on my right arm, which rested atop the rail of her bed. It had been a long day.

Just then, she started to rub the back of my neck and head with her right hand.