My father believed in reincarnation, in souls, in something beyond what we can understand in a material way. My mother, on the other hand, was practical and pragmatic. While Dad attended the Spiritual Centre most Sunday mornings, Mum stayed home and prepared the simple brunch she served him and his friends afterwards. She found company and conversation around the table the way Dad found community and connection at the Centre.

My parents fell in love at first sight; my mother wrote of that meeting in the memoir she completed in the final year of her life: “If this man asks me to go to India with him tonight, I will go.” She didn’t even know his name! India was only ever a metaphor, but their love endured for more than sixty years until my father’s death from a heart attack in 2015, after a long illness.

Mum left the family home and moved into a seniors residence where she adapted well to life as a widow. She and I lived in different provinces, but enjoyed many good times together — ‘girls’ time’ in her apartment or ‘family time’ with my partner and me at our cottage on a lake. We grew closer over the years and I came to love her more and know her better as her own person, without my father in the picture.

In the final months of her life, Mum lost physical capacity experiencing significant pain from deteriorating bones and strength. I was not surprised when she asked me to help her initiate the MAID process, which I did with my eyes wide open. We had often discussed death and dying with Mum’s characteristic forthrightness: “When I pop my clogs…” would open many a conversation about both the finite nature of life and Mum’s acceptance of her own death as inevitable. She was a supporter of Dying With Dignity Canada and she had long had the “Green Binder of Death” on her bookshelf. An ordinary 3-ring binder, it contained all relevant information for my two siblings and me for when Mum died — the certificate showing prepayment for cremation; contact details for lawyers, banks and others; the little red notebook in which Mum listed whose name was on which cherished possession from her apartment. It was all laid out, straightforward, clear. No sentimentality, no misplaced emotion for the natural cycle of life.

So, when she asked me over an early morning cup of tea in the very final days of her life, “Do you think I will see your father on the other side?” I was surprised. Not that she would want to be reunited with Dad; their love was enduring, I knew that. But because I had no idea that Mum held even a shred of belief in ‘the other side’, in anything beyond our physical body and material being.

But facing death head-on, as one does when choosing MAID, makes all pretense and preconception fall away, making space for every urgent question and intense wondering lurking in the corners of our heart and mind.

I said to Mum that whatever there is after death, it must surely be grand and good, and Mum deserved all good things, so, of course, Dad would be waiting for her. Of course, they would see each other again. Discussion of weighty matters and reassurance of the validity of her choice was what Mum wanted and needed. I gladly gave her both.

A few days later, Mum died, peacefully, gratefully, with dignity. Exactly as she had wanted her death to be.

I miss my mother every day and try to honour her legacy and her spirit by being kind, by being a good listener, and by asking the unexpected question at just the right moment to expand the conversation — and, in so doing, my understanding of who the person is that I am in connection with at that moment. When I am fully present in this way, even if there is some agitation at my question, there is also a feeling of peace from knowing we are each, right there, talking about exactly what is important.