Thoughts of Margaret

My friend's mother died last week, she was 56. I have known his family since I was 15, and I sat with them for two days while they watched her slip away from this life, on the third day she took a breath and not the next.  Have you ever had something happen that is so sad that you think you will never stop reeling....but it is not your sadness and the person you ache for is not yourself, but you feel it so strongly that it threatens to eclipse your own life for a moment?  I never knew Margaret closely, but I loved her because I loved her son.  In fact it would be impossible to care about Jason and not his mother, so much were they a part of one another's lives.  She was strong, she fought breast cancer to the end, a three year battle and when I saw her in July she was talking about going back to work in a few weeks after she got past some complications, even 2 weeks ago she was fighting to stay here. As I sat alone in a chair outside her room moments after her death, I watched the family she has held together all these years go in to say goodbye to her.  I can not help but cry for her sister, who spoke to her every Sunday and her mother, who never expected to bury her child, and her 2 granddaughters who will barely remember her, and I mourn for her sons, who had a mother who loved them above all else.

20 years ago I moved to NY, I dreamed of being famous, of success, of riches and earthly delights, but all my grandiose schemes have gone and I have a quiet life with my own son, a sweet, charming boy whom I love above all else.  If I could be like anyone, in this moment, I would choose to be like Margaret, to raise my son to be a good man, to send him out into the world and spread a little of me to those he meets.  Margaret can not disappear from this life, her two sons will always carry her within themselves and in this way anyone who knows them will know her and admire her.