(((HUGS)))) Dal!
Sharyn what can I say to you?
I read through that twice to begin to absorb it. You are probably in the place where my son was when my Mom died.
He loved my Mom, like a Mother. She took care of him while I worked, she took him back and forth to school when he was little. Her and my Dad lived with us, so he really knew no life without my Mom.
When she got sick he was away at University, of course he was concerned and tried to make it home on weekends. But like your Mom, she wasn't having any of that, she wanted him to concentrate on his studies.
I on the other hand was here, never missed a day with her, took her to all her chemo, took her to all the doctors visits, all the tests, I was the strong one, while my Dad fell apart. In the end, I fed her, I bathed her, we spent evenings curled up in her bed watching movies and sharing stories.
My son never got any of that and it bothers him. By the time he came home, she was really going down hill, she was in the hospital for 3 days before she passed and she did not want him to see her like that. I respected her wishes and so did he.
I was the only one who was there in the final days, of course by that time she was unconscious. I never really knew how affected he was until he cried one day, really cried and told me he "never got a chance to say goodbye"
And I said the same thing to him, as you just said "how do you say goodbye" How do you say goodbye to someone you love more than life?
You know what I said, I said "see you later" And you will see your Mom later, she is waiting for you.
Here is a poem I read at my Mom's funeral, hope it helps a bit:
Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
Canon Henry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918, Canon of St Paul's Cathedral