Scrolling through the drafts and I noticed this one that I had attempted to write during the summer. This was started a week before Father's Day. A lot of this was covered in this piece that was already published in October, so there are redundancies and/or details that might have been more present for me in the short-term as opposed to several months later. I will explain more after the jump. --ADH
It has been a little more than three months.
When I woke up on the morning of February 27, I'm sure that I had no idea that it would be her last day, even though I had been given ample advance warning that her time was coming. What I remember knowing for certain that morning when I dropped my daughter off at school and the Hub at work, was that I desperately needed to get a few uninterrupted hours of writing done. I had been struggling for weeks to publish anything, so my hope was to finish something (or make some progress on a few of the various pieces I had been writing), and then to see my Mom that later afternoon after my daughter's dance class.
I mentioned having had advanced warning because my Mom had been in hospice since last September. So I knew...but I had also been lulled into a false sense that she would defy the odds, be de-certified from receiving hospice care, and continue to carry on living in the background of the lives we had built for ourselves. It was a selfish wish. So I knew, but I just didn't want to believe.
There were signs. During the month of January, which I now call Calamuary, everything began to unravel. My Mom's long-time home health aide went out on extended medical leave for a double hip replacement, a procedure she put off for months or possibly years. My parents' long-term care insurance, which had been slow-walking reimbursement payments since the summer, reminded me that they are in the business of making money not paying it out. The home health care agency that recently went conglomerate by acquiring smaller agencies and changing its name to reflect the fact that it was not a conglomerate, informed me that it intended to increase their rates. This is also while they sent us an ever-limited rotation of aides who were certified to work in our jurisdiction. The hospice nurse, who had been jovial and upbeat for most of her weekly visits in 2023, began to look worried mere weeks after the start of the New Year. Then the furnace fucking stopped working.
We survived. I prayed that we could make it to her birthday, February 1, and then kept praying. On the night of her birthday when I finally made my way over to the house to see her, the indications that I had been warned would signal the end were more evident. She wasn't awake. If she ate, we had to be more careful to prevent aspiration. The pressure sore on her tailbone began to get worse. She looked frail and weak and was rapidly losing weight. I brought her a gourmet birthday cookie, which I think my daughter ended up eating a few days later.
For Valentine's Day, I bought candy and make little treat boxes for the home care aides, including her long-time aide. She had wanted to schedule a visit and a day of beauty for Mom, and had enlisted the services of her daughter, but I hesitated. Not on having her visit, but I was concerned that my Mom wasn't strong enough for anything taxing like getting her hair done. But I agreed in theory that something was needed to lift the heaviness that had begun to permeate the house since the furnace fiasco of the previous month. We still had Christmas decorations up which my brother hastily took down (but I have yet to put them away). So I bought a banner that I intended to hang in her room. We opted for the living room where the now empty Christmas stocking hooks were affixed to the fireplace mantle. My thinking was that she might see the banner along with the weekly bouquet of flowers I brought for her when she was seated in her wheelchair.
There had been signs. I would not say that I didn't notice, but that I was unwilling to fully acknowledge them. In other words, I definitely knew, but I had been operating under the childish wish that if I kept my eyes closed and my fingers in my ears and if I sang aloud, then I could pretend not to notice what was happening. I could fake ignore that my Mom was dying in some futile attempt to avoid it, as if that would have made a difference.
It didn't. At about 11am that morning, after I had settled into a groove of writing, I got the call from the hospice nurse. I took a shower and got dressed. I packed up my computer and my chargers. I called my brothers and then a few relatives. I honestly don't remember if that is the exact order of things, but I know that I was on the phone with my college roommate when I arrived at the house. My younger brother, who had been waiting for me, met me outside to let me know that he was leaving to pick up our kids from school. Inside, my Dad's priest was administering Last Rites and the home care aide (whose name I don't remember) was praying and crying. At some point, relatives began to arrive. One of my uncles sat in the living room with his head in his hands. Someone announced that there was food in the kitchen. Friends of mine arrived. At some point, I even received a phone call from Africa.
Then everyone left. My Mom was still breathing, but with difficultly it seemed, so we questioned whether the morphine would help. We decided that it would, and then we discussed what might happen the next morning...
The details of someone's last day mean more to the people who are able to remember them. Of this I am clear because I don't know what my Mom knew or felt. I can't ask her. I go into her empty room and while I feel her presence, it is not the same as it was when she was physically in that hospital bed, in my Dad's den that had been converted into an accessible first floor bedroom.
I am not okay.
So if you ask, I will lie and say that I am, not because I want to be deceptive, but because I have made the calculation that answering honestly in that moment will likely require me to elaborate or listen to some nicely intentioned, but tone-deaf speech. I know that my Mom is with me and that she is proud of me (at least I think she is). Yes, I will miss her forever, as I try to figure out how I got through these months without crumbling.
That was in June, this is now the first week of December, and my birthday is coming. I happened upon this piece when I was looking through my list of drafts to see if I could move some thoughts from another piece I am currently writing.
While some of my writing struggles remain, I am working through them. It helps to have a window of time without any chaos, which brings its own set of unique challenges. Because life can be chaotic, even in the quiet moments.
Anyway, I find myself a bit more reflective and in my feelings about this birthday. It marks the official end of what was to be my milestone year of new and exciting life experiences (something else I didn't finish writing about but will revisit soon). After this week, I'm just another 50-something Gen Xer who's trying to figure out how I got here in the blink of an eye...seeing as I just turned 21 thirty years ago! I anticipate that it will feel weird to celebrate this life without the person who made me possible.
I know I am not alone. This year has felt like a reckoning with destiny for a lot of us--losing a parent, sibling, partner or beloved elder and having to adjust to the hole that grief leaves in place of their physical presence. Grief was not on my BINGO card of life experiences I was eager to add to my bucket list, despite what I said above about seeing all the signs. It is one thing to acknowledge and accept the inevitability of fate for someone whom you've watched live with a chronic illness for several years. It is quite another realization once they have passed not to have to watch them suffer, feel relieved and immediately guilty that you were about to make a choice between their suffering (life) and yours (grief).
Because that is how it feels to miss my Mom right now, wishing she was still here while knowing that if she were still alive, she would be in agony dealing with all of those ailments. The selfish part of me would find meaning and purpose in fighting with her long-term care and the home care agency, instead of putting off avoiding dealing with them since I no longer have to. Death took my mother and my job as a caregiver, so now what am I supposed to do now?
That was the struggle I was living with in June, how to reimagine my life just before the start of summer and everything I wrote about here. Now in December, on the eve of my birthday and in the early days of this holiday season, I re-read what I wrote then and had to ask myself why so much of this still rings true. When did the point of my life become so narrow? Why does grief require so much energy--exhausting to keep it at bay, and overwhelming if I don't resist? Does anyone else go through this?
My Mom was just a year or so younger than I am now when my Grandmother died. As I tried to recall the impact of her mother's death on her, I only gave the matter serious thought recently. I knew how it affected the relationships among her siblings with repercussions that lingered for decades. It never occurred to me that her grief manifested in anger, much like mine. Whereas she fell out with family, I have been reckless and unapologetic in my dealings with strangers (that happens to be the topic of the other piece I'm currently writing).
So let me get back to that piece by ending this one on a more positive note. Life does go on. I am still here, still trying to figure things out, still writing. And now I'm a year older and wiser.
No comments:
Post a Comment