7:40am MDT Sept 16, 2023
Dad: Mom is non responsive this morning
Julie: Can we come be with you?
7:42am MDT
Ash: Oh. Dad what do you need? Should we come over?
Julie: Is it time?
Dad: Nurse Betsy had told Laura and me to expect that was the next phase. A compassus nurse will check later today.
Laura: Julie and I are on our way over
Ash: I’m far away but I’ll be there ASAP
Dad: no hurry, ok
it’s already been a year. Mom was kind enough to die on a Saturday when my teacher sisters would have time to grieve without using all three of their bereavement days immediately.
Four days ago, I broke down like I haven’t in a while. I sobbed for hours. HARD. All of the feelings came rushing forth – I miss my mom. I’m sad about all kinds of ordinary things – like she won’t be able to see my youngest graduate from university. I’ll never get another text from my mom on my birthday to tell me she’s proud of me and loves me. That she chose to not prolong her life. The last time she asked when I was moving back to Colorado, I had said, “2 years, minimum,” and now she won’t be around to be happy when I do finally make it back.
It was 100% her call, and I don’t fault her for it. I just wanted more time.
Therapy has helped me work through many things about losing my mom. Six themes, specifically. A lot of my lingering thoughts and feelings stem from how quickly it all seemed to happen. Living 2,000 miles away prevents the everyday impact of decline – so every time I saw her, she was markedly worse. Mom went from being independent and strong to frail with a whisper voice to frustrated with her body’s growing limitations, to acceptance that her body was failing and no amount of frustration and willpower would overcome that. All of this in 3 or 4 visits over the course of not even a year.
I knew she had things she wanted to do in this lifetime that she didn’t get to do because of how quickly things progressed. If she were here, she would tell you she held death off longer than doctors expected, but reality would tell you she probably should have accepted hospice support earlier than she did. She would have been more comfortable for a longer period of time.
My mind no longer wanders immediately to the final 24 hours of her time on this earth when I close my eyes. I don’t replay the day in my head endlessly. I don’t feel tears automatically streaming down my face when I close my eyes (and when I do, I let it happen because I’ve learned you have to experience the grief in order to let go enough to integrate the loss into your life).
I’ve read books on grief, memoirs of losing a mom, I’ve done a lot of work integrating grief into my life. I’ve come to realize there will never be a day when I’m magically totally OK with this – time will help soften the bruise but it might always be a little sore.
Sometimes I think about those hours we spent with mom’s body before the nurse came by to declare her death. It was intense and raw. Most of us wanting to find something of hers to bring home with us – a sweater to wrap around ourselves like a hug, an old stuffed animal from when we were kids. But she had already cleaned out her closets and donated a bunch of stuff and the specific things we desired weren’t available to us.
The last sense to go is hearing. At one point Dad decided to turn on Mom’s playlist so we’d have music to listen to while we were waiting for the nurse. Mamma Mia comes blaring out of the speakers – it was both perfect and wildly inappropriate.
Last year’s summer, when Mom’s death seemed imminent, I went out to see her. The living room was full of things. Mom already had limited mobility and communicated mostly with a whiteboard and marker. My sister and I went through the stuff to ask her what to keep, trash, and donate. Lots of stuff went to the trash or donate category. But I remember pulling up her old cross country skis that she had bought so many years ago at a swap meet. She wrote “If I survive this, I want to keep these.”
Sometimes I think about the things Mom loved – springer spaniels, sewing, gardening, needlecrafts, doing fun activities with younger children. Being a mom and eventually, a grandma. Making oatmeal cookies with the add-in each kid preferred: raisins for some, chocolate chips for others, gummy bears for the ones who thought that would be funny. She liked to ride bikes but wasn’t a cyclist in the spandex-clad sense. Riding with her on the Elephant Rock Ride was a highlight. She enjoyed hiking as much as her blown-out knees would let her. She played soccer even while pregnant with her third kid. She loved living in Colorado, but missed autumns in Massachusetts. If anyone was going to be able to survive an apocalypse, it was Mom and her backyard greenhouse and garden.
Many times I remember how she was sitting on the edge of her bed and I was helping her get into bed for the night. She leaned over and kissed my arm and mouthed “I love you” because she couldn’t speak or write anymore. I told her I’d be back in the morning. And that’s the last conversation we had.
I know I’m not the first and won’t be the last to lose a parent, to have things unsaid and undone with no recourse. To wrestle with the understanding a person is not just your parent, but also their own Self and someone else’s child. That we are all complex individuals trying to figure out what life means and how we want to live it. Watching my mom make her choices (and seeing the impacts of some of those choices after her death) has given me the initiative to take care of my own affairs: write a will, tell my loved ones what my wishes are, make sure my life insurance is up to date and will make sure everything is taken care of when I can no longer care for my family. Do the best I can to make sure my children know they are loved every single day simply because they exist – and that they don’t need to agree with me on everything.
Thinking about death isn’t comfortable or fun – but I don’t want my kids calling the funeral home 18 hours before I die because death wasn’t considered an option in my life.
We have one life to live – live it well.
miss you mom
wife. mother. awesome girl. 