NEWS FEATURE: Even with death, a mother’s love does not die

c. 1997 Religion News Service (RNS) _ Six years ago, 33 year-old Angela Hanson’s mother slipped into a coma and died three days later. Since then, Mother’s Day is a holiday Hanson often prefers to overlook because remembering it makes her feel”alone and abandoned, like an orphan.” Hanson’s grief on the holiday is not uncommon […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

(RNS) _ Six years ago, 33 year-old Angela Hanson’s mother slipped into a coma and died three days later. Since then, Mother’s Day is a holiday Hanson often prefers to overlook because remembering it makes her feel”alone and abandoned, like an orphan.” Hanson’s grief on the holiday is not uncommon among those who have lost their mother. Another woman whose mother died several years ago says that as she shops for cards for friends”it’s as if a knife goes through my heart.” Indeed, the flowery commercials airing on radio and television, the card racks filled with poetic expressions of gratitude and the restaurants advertising special holiday meals are painful reminders to those”motherless”sons and daughters of the deep loss they carry within.

Often, those who have lost a parent feel burdened by memories of missed opportunities _ the unfulfilled deeds and unspoken words of love.


Hanson, for example, still wrestles with feelings of regret for not doing more for her mother and imagines what she might do were her mother still alive.”We would spend (Mother’s Day) together. I would buy her a new outfit, take her out for a wonderful meal and talk to her. Most of all, I would thank her,”said Hanson, a businesswoman who lives in Rockville, Md.

In today’s therapeutic culture, Americans often overlook what they received from their parents, focusing instead on what they missed. While this may yield important insights into the parent-child relationship, it also leaves many unprepared for the profound love and depth of grief they may experience at a parent’s passing.

Yet the death of a parent does not have to mean that the chance for healing has passed.

Contrary to popular belief, death is not the final act in the family drama, according to a growing number of psychotherapists and others who cite what they term numerous reports of ADC’s _”after-death communication”_ as proof the familial bond persists after death. And just as in life, they say, such relationships continue to grow and develop in new and surprising ways.”When a parent dies,”says Alexandra Kennedy, a psychotherapist and grief counselor in Soquel, Calif.,”people think that if they don’t hold on to their memories, they’re going to lose that person. So they don’t allow for the changes that might have happened in themselves or their loved one as a result of the death experience. But the relationship does change and we can experience it in the present.” The idea that the departed maintain a connection with the living is a difficult concept in a society that generally views death as a finality. But for many traditional cultures, says Kennedy, such belief is a natural part of life.

The Confucian and Buddhist religions, for example, teach that households should have family altars, Kennedy writes in her book,”Your Loved Ones Within You”(Berkeley Books).

There, before photos of the deceased, it is not unusual for family members to carry on daily conversations with the departed. This practice helps ease grief, and allows ancestors to continue to guide and inspire their family.

Kennedy recommends adopting this practice by setting up a personal family altar at home or in nature and decorating it with photos, candles or personal mementos that belonged to the loved one.


There, she says, people can take a silent moment to”wish their departed parent a Happy Mother’s Day _ just as they would if their mother were alive. They may also wish to speak about past hurts, express their grief or simply bring their mothers up to date on work and relationships.” If the current rise of interest in after-death communication is any indication, these ancient beliefs are resurfacing in the dreams and visions of modern-day people. In the process, societal beliefs regarding the after-life are being transformed.

But some experts urge caution.

Lucy Bregman, associate professor of religion at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pa., for example, stresses discrimination is essential when dealing with after-death communication. In working with therapists and bereavement counselors around this issue, Bregman, who teaches courses in death and dying, recommends there be a clear distinction between therapeutic rituals that help bring closure to the grieving process and”the belief that the dead are actually present.” Otherwise, she warns,”It looks like therapists are endorsing practices that depend on particular spiritual beliefs about the dead.”Such beliefs, says Bregman, may conflict with the religious faith of the client.

In her case, Hanson says, because her mother was in a coma at the time of her death, they were unable to say good-bye. The lack of a final farewell left her with feelings of unresolved grief. Six months later, however, Hanson says her mother appeared to her in a dream”glowing radiantly with happiness.””She said good-bye,”Hanson recalls,”then turned to walk away. I realized that I was never going to see her again, and that she was going on a long journey. I said I wanted to go with her, but she got on a boat, waving and telling me she was going to a better place. As the boat started to pull away, I realized I couldn’t see the land to which she was traveling.” Hanson says the dream was her mother’s way of helping her come to terms with her loss. Yet her mother did not disappear forever: during times of stress, she says, her mother still sometimes appears in her nightly dreams to reassure her.

Justin Matott, a 35-year-old writer from Littleton, Colo., says he experienced a similar healing encounter with his mother following her death seven years ago from a brain tumor.

Raised Roman Catholic, Matott says his mother cultivated in him an abiding spirituality. Because he was adopted, he recalls, the two shared”an extremely unusual relationship because my mother always let me know I was handpicked. She liked to say that I was special because I was double-blessed.” Thus, Matott says, the act of unhooking the machines prolonging his mother’s life, coupled with her death, took a severe emotional toll that nearly cost him his faith.”I felt like I was losing a best friend and one of the pillars of my life,”he says.”Driving home from the hospital, I felt for the first time like renouncing my faith in God. The injustice of it seemed more than a 28 year-old should have to take. I cried out, but I didn’t curse God, because I thought I might get hit by lightning.” Still”angry at God,”Matott says he went home and fell into a fitful sleep. Later that night, however, he says, he was awakened suddenly by his mother sitting beside him on his bed.”It was a physical, real appearance. My mother was in a beautiful state, as though her body had been renewed the way the Bible promises.” Matott’s mother, he says, let him know she was going to a better place and he needed to come to peace with that.”For the first time in my life,”he recounts,”I dealt directly with the idea of eternity _ I knew that I knew. It was a wonderful experience and I wasn’t at all frightened.” Though Matott says he still”grieved his mother daily,”yearning for her physical presence, his new found peace allowed him to plunge back into his work and family life. Five years later, he says, his mother began appearing to him in a series of visitations.

He began writing a record of those encounters and the result is the beautifully illustrated,”My Garden Visits,”(Ballantine) a book that blends his mother’s gentle guidance with colorful descriptions of the sweet peas, snapdragons and oriental poppies he grows.


The experience changed his life. Formerly a workaholic businessman, Matott now spends his days raising his sons, writing _ and gardening.

Just as importantly, however, Matott says last year’s Mother’s Day was the first time that he”didn’t feel sorry for himself.”Because of his book, he explains,”I knew I had given something back to my mother that was the best gift I could find _ a testimony to her love and to who she was.” In fact, says Kennedy, it is the inability to express the love they feel that makes Mother’s Day so painful for those whose mothers are no longer alive. But, she says,”if people could realize that there’s an ongoing sense of that parent within them, then they don’t have to live with the regret and resign themselves to memories.” DEA END PEAY

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!