Excerpt from Passing On: Farewell to Mother (Joanna Romer)
Farewell to Mother Reading Dr. Alexander’s book about his near-death experience, I was immediately struck by the experience I’d had when my mother was in a coma. It was so vivid I can remember how it felt to this day, though it was now 29 years ago. My mother was a very healthy woman. In her 70s, she swam every day, worked on her writing and maintained a busy social life with the local garden club and other organizations. When my father died, Mom was 75 and her abilities were undiminished. After two years, sShe seemed to be rebounding nicely from Dad’s deathafter two years, yet something may have been missing that I wasn’t aware of. Or perhaps, as a neighbor hinted, she’d met a new man… One night I was awakened by a phone call around 1 a.m. “You’d better come down to Florida,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Your mother’s in a coma.” I was astonished. Just four days earlier I had talked to my mother and she’d told me she was on her way to Miami to see the Pope, who was visit...