Category / Mother

by annegallagher

Endings as Beginnings

There is a certain freedom in the finality of the last scene in Thelma and Louise.  The motor guns and the ’66 Thunderbird soars almost triumphantly above the cliff to Thelma and Louise’s inevitable deaths.  It is surprisingly fitting and peaceful.

When my friend Tina and I heard the news of Ann’s mother’s death, we agreed to make the 8-hour drive from Chicago to Toronto to attend the wake and funeral.  Instead of that ’66 Thunderbird, Tina pulled up in a large black Infinity SUV with Ann’s personal assistant Tracy riding shotgun and her trusty beagle Riley next to me in the back seat.   We had never done a road trip together, weren’t sure of the route but were ready for whatever lie ahead.

Ann had been at her mother’s bedside for weeks as she lay dying and we knew how important it was to her to see and feel our support in person.   Women have a special way of supporting each other and we couldn’t let Ann down.  Although Ann’s mother was in her 80s, the death came as a surprise after a very brief illness.  For anyone who has had a mother pass one, you know.  No matter when or how your mother passes on to the great beyond, it is one of the most challenging events a daughter ever faces.  We weren’t quite sure how best to support Ann and so we hoped for a sign as we picked up coffee at Starbucks and headed east through Illinois on to Interstate-94.

It wasn’t long before the hearse appeared alongside us on a flat-bed truck.  “U R Next,” read the license plate.  We locked eyes and let out giggles.  Were we?  Aren’t we all?  Yes, we’d asked for a sign but what exactly did this one mean?

We drove on, making pit stops for gas and food, all the while trying to drive fast enough to make the wake.  We’d left late and desperately needed to make up time.  The wake ended at 9 p.m. and we were nowhere near the Canadian border.  Just then, traffic slowed down to a grinding halt.  In Chicago, this would be expected, but we were on Highway 69 in Michigan and there seemed no logical explanation for the big-city traffic jam on a relatively untraveled highway.  And then we saw the police cars, the overturned truck and the small boy covered in a blanket on the side of the road, nestled in grass.  A policeman stood near him, holding him, rubbing his shoulders.   It was obvious he was the sole survivor of a terrible crash, the entire top of the truck having been cut off as clean as if a knife had sliced it.

The mood turned somber.  Death had made its not-so-subtle entrance.

We drove quietly and then in unison turned our heads to see a large, white truck lumber up next to our overly large SUV.  Written on the back of the truck in blue lettering was the word, “Eternity,” with pictures of three crosses and a biblical verse.

Now, there are signs and then there are signs.  The rule of thumb is that when they come in three’s, it’s time to sit up and listen.  We sat up.  We were traveling to a funeral after all.

With 15 minutes to spare and by some quick changing and partial nudity in the car, witnessed by only one passing motorist in the parking lot, we made it to the wake.  Ann greeted us gratefully, half surprised we had made it under the deadline.  “So, you showed up?” she chided us with a smile.  Her mother lay peacefully in the casket across the room.  “It’s sinking in,” she shared and we felt her sorrow.  Deeply.

We were slap-happy after our long road trip.  But Ann’s pain filled the room.  We watched as she and her family said goodbye to their mother.  We walked out of the funeral home together with them, meeting up later at a pub.

When the funeral began the next morning at St. Anthony Catholic Church, Tracy, Tina and I appeared right behind the procession, having mixed up the Torontonians’ directions, arriving in the nick of time.  Ann looked at us as she walked in to the church behind the coffin, her eyebrow raised in the “seriously?” gaze at us.  It was all happening so fast.  How could it seem like a week had passed when we’d been in Canada less than 24-hours?

“Funerals are the window to eternity,” Father John Mullins said as he opened his eulogy.  Remembering the message on the white truck, Tina, Tracy and I turned to each other.  Eternity had just called out to us.  “With God, the fulfillment is greater than the expectation.  The struggles in life as we heard in the beatitudes* are the coin of the realm.”

Just then, Tina gasped.  As we looked over to her in our pew, she help up a shiny Canadian penny.  Tracy and I gasped.  “What does it mean,” I asked, even though I was well aware of the phenomenon of finding pennies.

“Someone is watching over us, someone is here for us,” Tina said and we knew it felt true.  Ann watched over her mom and now we were watching over her.

“It’s really the end now, isn’t it?” Tracy asked.  “I mean, the funeral really signals the end.”

“I think it might be the beginning,” I said.

The signs had prepared us, had brought us this far.  The longer I live, the more signs I see.  When you open the door to a little guidance, it comes in droves.  It never fails.

I took the Canadian penny and replaced it with two American pennies.  Someone else could find a little bit of hope.

It was time to begin the journey home.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

*The eight beatitudes in Matthew 5:3–12 during the Sermon on the Mount are stated as Blessed/Happy/Fortunate are:[2][3]

  • the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:3)
  • those who mourn: for they will be comforted. (5:4)
  • the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. (5:5)
  • they who hunger and thirst for righteousness: for they will be satisfied. (5:6)
  • the merciful: for they will be shown mercy. (5:7)
  • the pure in heart: for they shall see God. (5:8)
  • the peacemakers: for they shall be called children of God. (5:9)
  • those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (5:10)
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by annegallagher

From Stove to Studio

“That’s so interesting.  How did you get into acting?” is the usual comment and question I’m asked when people find out that I do voice over, tv commercials and the occasional film.  There is a long answer and a short answer.  Most people receive the short answer — I fell into it.

The long answer is the reason I write Anne on Fire.  It answers the question:  How does burning your leg on a stove at 2 years old lead one to the acting world?

From the research and interviews I’ve conducted, I learned that when my mother found me on the stove, sealed to it by the sole of my shoe and burning, I was in shock, unable to say a word or call out for help.  As time went on, my wounds healed and I was a normal kid in every respect.  Except that no one ever talked about the accident.  Without that context, I was left alone to create my own meaning for the event.

Everything might have gone on just fine, had my mother not asked me to make her two promises on her deathbed.  “Don’t fight with your sisters,” she implored, a request that seemed incredibly difficult to me as the youngest of three girls.  I reluctantly agreed.  “Use your talents.  Promise me,” she asked, as we pressed on the morphine drip that eased her pain in those final days.  That request seemed the easier of the two, especially since I’d always fancied myself as the creative one of her five children.

She passed.  Time passed.

Now and then, I would have the distinct impression that she was whispering to me from beyond.  Mostly I shrugged these moments off.  Raised as a traditional Catholic, I certainly believed in the after-life.  But the teachings were that we humans got just one shot at life, then pass on to our eternal future, where by all accounts, we  wait in joyful hope of the coming of the rest of our loved ones to the pearly gates.  There was no talk of secret messages passed along to those of us left behind.  Eternal life meant we each went along in our separate domains.  But what if she was trying to tell me something?

It was Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, old as the country itself where my cousin got married.  He asked me to do a reading at the wedding and I’d read it over many times in preparation.  Since elementary school, I had a long history of being asked to read in church and it always exhilarated me.

I climbed up to the church’s pulpit and pressed the reading flat with my hand.  And then it happened.  I looked up and somehow, some way, time was frozen.  The people in the pews were frozen.  Everything was silent and un-moving.  I didn’t talk.  I couldn’t talk.  I felt as if I’d been in this place before.   A soft whisper in my ear and I heard her, “Use your talents.  You are not doing what I asked.”

Fumbling now and with shaky hands, I looked up to see the people moving, waiting for me to begin.  I did.  I read each word slowly and carefully, feeling a powerful surge as I ended the piece.

As I stepped back down to my seat, my legs wobbled and I noticed I was sweating.  I looked around for acknowledgement but the ceremony just continued on.  Something had happened and I needed to find out what it was.

I didn’t know it then but the acting career I never thought about before was about to begin.

NEXT:  Part 2

by annegallagher

August 5th: When Memories Remember You

Driving across the Indiana border into the country today, the Queen Anne’s lace and yellow coreopsis ran wild in the fields along the road.  The sun beamed into the car and a soft warm breeze blew in the window, opened just a crack to bring some summer air in.  When I wiped my face, I felt warm tears and wondered if the breeze made my eyes water.  With a tap to the automatic control, I closed the car window but the wetness still puddled in the corner of my eye.   Now that I’d noticed it, the tears seemed to slightly increase their pace.  The drive was pleasant and I had no reason to cry.

I’ve had enough mystical experiences to know that when the body overrides the mind, there is something I’ve missed that set off a physical reminder.  And then it hit me.  Of all the days of the year, August 5th is the one that started my journey into Anne on Fire, though I didn’t know it at the time.  On August 5th, 1996, my mother died after a six-month battle with liver cancer.

I glanced at the car clock and it showed 12:30, within an hour of the time my mother died on that August 5th morning, a morning much like today with the sun streaming in to the windows of her bedroom and the flowers blowing softly in the breeze outside.  Can the body really remember what the mind choses not to?

That morning I sat with the hospice worker and held my mother’s hand.  It had grown frail and bony like the rest of her body as the cancer withered her athletic frame.  Her breath rattled and I gave the morphine pump another squeeze to ease her pain.  When the hospice worker told me we were close to the end, she suggested I make a couple of telephone calls to let the family know.  I slipped out of the room and into the kitchen, dialing my aunt Mary — my mother’s only sibling.  I had begun to tell Aunt Mary the news when the hospice worker hurriedly appeared before me and whispered, “It’s time.”  I told Aunt Mary I’d call her back shortly and strided into the bedroom, grasping for my mother’s hand.  One breath.  Then another.  Then silence.  Her grip faded slowly from mine but I grasped even more tightly.

And then the most amazing thing happened  Her spirit seemed to separate from her body.  A transparent mirror image floated upward in excruciating slow motion.  I gasped loud enough to startled myself.  Then I realized my hands were hot, feeling intense heat in each one so much so that they began to tremble.  I watched immobile as the transparent image of my mother floated up out of the room.

She was gone and at the same time I knew she was with me.

Awe-struck I turned to the hospice worker, who quietly told me, “You have been given a gift from your mother.  Treasure it.”

“But what just happened.  Tell me?”

“Death is as precious a gift as life.  Not all of us are allowed to witness it.  Your mother gave you the gift of being with her for her journey.  We all choose when to die and who will be with us,” she said and I knew then this woman had witnessed many deaths and was a very special person to share this with me.

The rest of the day dissolved in a blur of activity.   Aunt Mary arrived as did my brother Jim and sisters, Kathleen and Susie.  Funeral people were called; arrangements began to be made.

Something unique had happened and I watched the activities unfold as if in a trance.  Something had changed in me as well.  I couldn’t put my finger on it but everything was different.  In the days and months and years that followed, I began to receive signs from my mother.  These were the signs that set me on the Anne on Fire journey.

More to come.

Eileen Gertrude Stark Gallagher.   1930-1996.  Rest in peace.

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