My mother died just over three months ago.
I’ve started this entry a number of times—each time with the
length of my mom’s death from now changing.
And each time, I’ve stopped right about there. In a lot of ways, that sentence says it
all. People, even people with living
mothers, understand a lot about what happens to someone after they read that
sentence. That sentence is somewhat
universal.
But it doesn’t capture everything. Everyone’s relationship with their mother is
different, and how someone deals with that loss is different. I haven’t really dealt with it all that
well.
***********
Last November, my mom had
successful open-heart surgery. It was
successful in the fact that she did not die, and that it was supposed to help
her with clotting issues, and general tiredness she’d been dealing with in the
last few months before the surgery. The
day of her surgery was hellish. It was
my brother’s birthday, which had to have been completely unpleasant for
him. My wife and I drove with my sister
to the hospital early that morning. We
met up with my brother in my mom’s hospital room, where she’d had to spend the
night to be monitored. Then things
happened fast, and all I remember is flashes.
We were making awkward small talk, and she was taken down to an area to
get ready. We were able to go with her. We were asked who should be the contact
person, and we said my brother. Mom
requested a priest, or pastor, or whatever the spiritual hospital person is
called. That person came and a prayer
was said. And then she was gone.
They showed us to the waiting
area, where we took up residence at a table and pretty much played games all
day, while keeping an eye on a screen that was to update us about Mom’s
progress. For most of the day, it simply
said, “in surgery.” The day went pretty
smoothly. I don’t remember much about
the day, except that I did everything I could to stay busy or distracted. I didn’t want to let myself have too much
time to think about what might be happening in a room not that far from where I
was.
Eventually, the surgeon came
out, and said that everything had gone well.
Mom was alive. The surgery was a
success. And we were all thrilled. So happy that now Mom would have a better
quality of life.
*************
After the surgery, everyone was
happy, and Mom seemed to think the surgery had gone well. She went to a facility where everything
seemed to go well. Not perfectly, but
they decided that she could go home, and that everything was good. But then it seems as though it didn’t. There’s disagreement about why things went
south. I go back and forth about the
reasons why Mom didn’t recover as well as hoped. Some days I assign the blame to doctors, care
workers, Mom herself, or Me. Other days,
I think this is just something that happens.
Sort of like an accident or fate.
Maybe nothing could be done.
Either way, the fact is she did
not recover. She had trouble
walking. She would fall and have trouble
getting up. She seemed weaker. She would see things or be really confused. Once she swore the light in her room would
move down toward her bed. Another time
she swore the paint in her room was a different color yesterday. She also swore to having conversations that
did not happen. But she also refused to
leave her home and go somewhere that would be able to help her. My brother did the best he could, but she
needed much more help than anyone who was not trained was going to be able to
give her.
She eventually did end up in a
facility. The plan was for that facility
to help her get to a place where she could live alone again, if possible. Unfortunately, while she was there, she
caught an infection. By the time it was
noticed, it was too far along. It shut
down her organs and there was nothing that could be done.
********
Sunday, April 20, 2014. I got a text message from my brother saying I
should come down and see Mom. I knew
things weren’t going well, but I didn’t fully realize how badly they really
were going. I told him I would be down
on Monday, but that I didn’t know when I could leave.
I went into work Monday morning,
told my boss the situation, and left. My
wife and I left a short time after that.
The drive down took forever. I
remember hearing songs from Neil Young’s new album being played on the
radio. If you haven’t heard the songs,
Neil Young recorded the whole album in a vinyl recording booth that makes
actual vinyl records of the music being made inside. The sound is scratchy, beautiful, and has an
instantly retro feel to it. One of the
songs was Springsteen’s, “My Hometown,” which was intense, and gorgeously done. Neil Young’s voice was so sharp and so
honest, it made me cry.
We drove to the hospital. When I entered the room, I felt like I had
been running. I saw my sister and
brother sitting in the corner, both trying their best to hold it together. My mother was in her bed. Her eyes were fluttering, and unfocused. Her arms were strapped down and moved on
their own. Her breathing was assisted by
a respirator. She was cool to the
touch. My mother was not really there. The smiling, generous woman who loved to be
goofy and always wanted to help me was gone.
But she was still alive.
It was quickly decided that Mom
wouldn’t want to live like this. It was
the obvious decision, given talks Mom had had with each of us. Looking back on this, the fact that it was so
quick and so obvious makes it harder to deal with later. Decisions like this are supposed to be hard,
and should take time to come to. In the
trial’s I’ve observed since, attorneys describe the “beyond a reasonable doubt”
standard by saying it’s the kind of doubt you would have if you were making a
decision about pulling the plug on a loved one.
And, I agree with that idea, and I think this was the right
decision. But still I wonder if the fact
that it came so quickly for me means something about who I am.
**************
My sister and brother and I each
took a few moments alone with Mom. To
say what we needed to say to her. To
make peace with the decision. To—I don’t
know. I spoke to her. Or at her, I don’t know. But I said things I needed to say, and I hope
she heard them. Hope she knew them long
before this moment. That will probably
be a mystery for me. I can hunt down
clues and make good deductions and inferences, but I may never know. Or maybe that’s just where I’m at with this
now. Maybe in time it will all be
clearer.
After we all had our time with
Mom, they started weaning her off the machines that helped her stay alive. The monitors were all shut off. A magnet was put over her heart to disable
the pacemaker that had helped her heart stay in rhythm. We were left alone, and we just watched. We watched as Mom died. Her breathing slowed. Her mouth opened and silently tried to gulp
in more air, but with less and less success.
Her cool hands didn’t move. Her
eyes never focused. And she died.
It was about 6:00 p.m., on April
21, 2014. It was a Monday. The sun was shining. The grass was so green from all the rain Iowa
had been having. It was a beautiful
spring day.
**************
The last time I think I talked
to my Mom was on her birthday, which is also my wedding anniversary. My wife and I had traveled to Galena,
Illinois, which is where we went right after we had been married six years
before. It was a month before my mother
died, and my mother and I chatted while I stood on the steep staircase that
took me from the town to where we had parked.
I don’t really remember what we talked about. I don’t think the she had caught the
infection that took her life.
I know I told her I loved
her. I also know I was really sad after
her call. Most of her calls had made me
really sad. That’s just where she was
then. She had a rough time dealing with
her divorce from my Father. She never
really bounced back from that in a lot of ways.
I feel guilty about this now, but it was hard to look forward to calling
her. I skipped some weeks, because I did
not know what to say to her. Because I
wanted to help her feel better, but I knew I wouldn’t or couldn’t. She was depressed, probably in the clinical
sense, but certainly in the less technical meaning. It bothers me that I was not able to help
her. It bothers me I couldn’t get her to
help herself. But it really bothers me
that when I think of my Mother, this is the person who comes forward first. This person is my Mother. But she’s just part of her. She’s not the whole person. She’s not the person who raised me. She’s not the person who is proud of me, and
wanted me to be happy and proud of myself.
She’s not the person who taught me to work hard, and led by example. And the fact that I have to remind myself of
that makes me sad.
But every once in a while, I
remember something that makes me smile.
I suppose that’s the sadness falling away. The stress easing. The shock wearing off. I know this is going to be something that
will take a while to process, but sometimes those little moments lift my
spirits so much.
But mostly, I still miss my Mom
so much.
***********
I’m not sure why I wrote
this. Or why I’m sharing it with anyone
who might stumble across this website. I
was hoping it would make me feel better, and it has—at least for the moment. I was hoping something might be gained in my
grieving process as a whole, and maybe it has.
I don’t know. It seems like
there’s a whole lot of things I don’t know right now.
And that’s okay. Things are getting better, I think. The other problems that have come up in my
life are pressing, but I mostly feel optimistic about them now. I mean, it comes and it goes.
