My Mother Will Live 100 Years More

Mother's life was not one of accolades or prizes or financial riches. Mother was a handsome woman who lived a normal life.

But when cancer came to claim her face, it exposed a beauty previously unseen by me.

“That’s the thing about growing old,” she said of the affliction that had stolen her eyes and taken the bridge of her nose and left her in darkness. “Eventually God punishes every woman for her vanity.”

Even so, Mother continued to wear a wristwatch so she might document the hour when her eyesight would return. Of course, it never did. She was 81.

Evangeline Baldis (née Steele) was born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the daughter of a truck driver and waitress. In her life, Mother was many things. A factory girl, a florist, a painter, a gourmet, a theologian. She was a wife to three men. Mother to five children. Grandmother of 10. Great-grandmother of three.

She also offered sanctuary to many children lost in the blizzard of drugs and divorce known as The Eighties. There was always a warm meal at her table.

At that time, men were packing their bags and walking out the door and women were left to go out to earn the bread. Naturally, children ran wild—including her own. On more than one occasion, Mother presented herself in an old fur coat at the threshold of a disreputable door demanding her child be returned to her.

“There is a word for that,” her sister Joann said at the hour of her death. “Flair. Your mother had flair.”

Weeks earlier, Mother asked: “Why does God keep me around? What does he want from me? I’m ready.”

“One last great lesson, Ma,” I supposed. “I think He wants you to teach us how to die with dignity. How not to be afraid.”

She nodded. And then she asked for a cigarette. And then she asked for a chocolate. And then she asked for a spritz of Oscar de la Renta.

At the foot of her bed, a great-grandchild clutched at the post attempting to right herself. Mother knew the baby by the sound of her gurglings. The baby carries her name. Evangeline. The bringer of good news. The scent of lilac and sage wafted in from the garden along with the dang-dong of the wind chime.

Mother had been floating in the morphine clouds for sometime. As the day grew nearer, and the dosage grew higher, I expected strange things to bubble from her haze. I did not know what exactly. Rantings perhaps. Bitterness maybe. Medicine is a truth serum, and cancer is a monster.

But strange words never came. She was the same woman in death’s shadow as she was in life’s light. She was more handsome than I had ever known.

One evening, in the darkened room, she asked, “Why me, Lord?

“What’s that, Ma?”

“Kris Kristofferson,” she said. “Why me, Lord?”

It wasn’t a question. It was a request.

“Why Me?” is Kristofferson’s gospel song of humility and grace; of feeling unworthy of God’s blessings. I remembered it from boyhood.

I played it for her.

Try me, Lord
If you think there's a way
I can try to repay
All I've taken from you

Maybe, Lord
I can show someone else
What I've been through myself
On my way back to you

She sang along in a rasping, labored voice. And then she went to sleep.

Mother died today, or yesterday. But not really.

It is said that a woman dies twice. Once when her heart stops. And once when her name is spoken for the last time. Considering the people she touched, the kindness she freely gave, the strength she offered, I am quite sure Mother will live 100 years more. At least.