The days leading up to my moms death were tough. I didn't know death was so close, waiting outside the front door. I thought I would have a little more time. More time and opportunity for my mom to give me some last tidbits of info or advice, to forgive me for those things she had stayed so angry about for so many years. To tell me she loved me and regretted not being able to stay longer. But that last one wasn't true. She could have and chose not to.
Sitting here 5 years after her death, I still feel so much anger for her leaving, for her wanting to leave. For her not even thinking about fighting the cancer.
I was at work and my dad called. He said mom hasn't gotten out of bed yet today. I talked to her, she was breathing hard. She said she just couldn't catch her breath and was tired. I called hospice and asked them to send a nurse out. I remember driving to the house to check on her. She was short tempered and wanted to be left alone. I tried to help. She didn't want help. I went back to work.
I returned home after work with the kids. The nurse was still there. My mom never got better that day. I should have come home earlier. The nurse said she had been giving my mom morphine and it had been helping my mom calm down. I went in to see her. Hoping to comfort her or maybe to be comforted, I guess from her. Hoping for reassurance that she would be ok. Hoping she would say she regretted her decision to not try and fight. Hoping again for those last words of love. One last hug. Instead she was irritated, and snappy. I tried to offer my hand for comfort and tried to hug her. She pushed me away. she didn't want to be touched. My mom said to the nurse and I that she wanted to use the bathroom. She said she had been waiting for me to get home so I could help them. The nurse and I lifted mom out of bed, my mom barking orders and letting us know all the things we were doing wrong or too slow. We got her into the bathroom and on the way out of the bathroom, she decided she wanted to brush her teeth. I tried to tell her that she was turning purple and needed to rest. Inside I was panicking. Knowing I was watching my mom dying right before my eyes. She lashed out, her voice cutting through me like a knife. Her angry response, The tone of her voice, her words; the blade so cold I could feel myself turning cold. Well Shit, Rachel. Nothing I did in that moment was acceptable. There was no moments of sadness, or thoughtfulness. Just a lashing out at my being.
Death was in the house. Maybe she knew it was close. We got my mom back to bed. She sat on the edge of the bed gasping for air. Her concentrator humming loudly in the room. it was up as high as it would go. My moms lips were a deep purple. Her eyes wide open. She was leaning forward and then back on to the bed. Lifting her arms above her head and lowering them again, flailing around as the panic set in that she couldn't breathe and couldn't catch her breath. Her eyes were darting wildly back and forth. I tried to talk to her, tried to offer my hand on her arm for comfort. She swatted it away. I could see the nurse wince from discomfort of having to witness this. The nurse touched my arm and said I should go check on my kids. I turned to my mom and tell her I will be right back. I hope in that moment I still have time. Time to have one last conversation with my mom. One last meaningful interaction. One last chance for her to impart something for me to carry on with. One last hug, one last I love you. Anything. I would take anything.
My dad is sitting on the seat of his walker outside on the back porch. I take the kids out there and I tell the three of them that mom isn't doing well. I know it will be soon, but I don't know exactly when. I am in a fog. I dont know if I want to puke or cry. My dad looks straight ahead into the yard. "Well this happened so fast. I didn't think it would be this fast." He says. Tears welled up in his eyes, but never crashed over the edge. I felt in that moment my emotions coming in and out like waves lapping over rocks, anger, sadness, guilt, heartbreak. I felt numb. I wanted to cry and sleep at the same time.
The nurse comes running out to the porch. "I think she is dead. Your mom is dead."
"Are you sure?" I ask. She didn't seem sure.
"You should check" she says to me.
This is not a moment I would wish on anyone.
I walked into the room and my mom was laying there, still on her side facing away from me. No longer heaving her chest up and down trying to get enough air. I walk over to her, and the life is drained from her face. It is a gray color that only death can bring. The image burned into my memory like a branding iron on flesh. A wound that will never heal. A part of my soul that will never be the same again. I feel her wrist and her neck. I already know, but I check anyway. Her skin has already started to cool in just those few short minutes. Death had came and taken her away before I could even say good bye. Before she would let me hug her, before she was willing to hug me one last time. My whole soul shattered as I stood there. the finality of it, this, this one moment. shes gone. My brain on autopilot I tell the nurse, yes she is indeed dead. The nurse has tears streaming down her face.
I feel dead inside. I have nothing. There is nothing there. I comfort the nurse in that moment as waves of guilt and shame roll through me like thunder. How am I not feeling anything I think to myself.
I step out onto the back porch. I tell my kids and my dad that she is gone. I hug my kids and then I turn to my dad. I need help in that moment, support, love, comfort, reassurance. A hug. Anything. I need my dad. I get nothing.
"Well that's too bad" he says. We should call Michelle. I choke down my anger in that moment. I want to push him off his walker, kick him in his shins. slap him. There is nothing, no sentiments of how much he loved her, not even an I am going to miss her. No tears.
I look over at kids they are not crying either. I feel lost in that moment. What do I do now? We call my sister and tell her. She is crying so deeply, heartbroken her mom is gone. All I see every time I blink is my moms dead gray face. I try to comfort my sister but it is a blur. Anger and heartbreak rising and falling in my chest.
The nurse lets us know the mortuary will be there within 2 hours to get the body.
My dad turns to me and asks "hey you said earlier that you might go out to eat, is that still on the table? I am hungry and would like to go"
I stared at him is disbelief. I could not believe the callousness of the words falling from my dads lips. I didn't know what to say in response. I look around me hoping to find something to guide me. A guidepost to let me know my reaction is appropriate. There is nothing. I have no guidance. its just us. "Dad they have to come get the body before we can do anything." I say, still in disbelief. I didn't even feel like me in that moment. My brain in fog, my body felt numb, but my chest hurts as waves of emotion continue to crash into me.
The kids and my dad want to go inside. I tell them I will check to make sure the door to the room is closed. I step into the house and look in the direction of the bedroom. I feel the searing of the branding iron to my memory as I see my mom on her back with her mouth gaping open in a way that only happens after death has arrived. Her eyes sunken deep into her eye sockets. she is a ghostly grey now. An image that stays directly behind my eyelids every time I close my eyes and think of my mom.
The mortuary people arrive. The first man that does the talking is a very large man. He tells me don't watch as we take the body out its not pretty. I didn't really know what he meant. I always thought they took them out on stretchers. or a backboard in a body bag. I ushered the kids and my dad back outside to wait in the cool April evening air. I shouldn't have looked, they warned me. I didn't know. They were each carrying one end, but the body had slumped into the middle of the bag. folded in ways only a dead body can. They were right, I shouldn't have looked. Another searing image to haunt me from the branding iron to my memory.
I wasn't hungry, but I knew my kids were. I felt numb, like nothing really mattered. We all went to Ihop after they took my moms body away. I felt rolling thunder claps of shame and guilt crashing through me as I heard my stomach growl. How can you be hungry at time like this? I ask myself. This is why you are fat you know. I admonish myself. I sit and stare at the man across from me as he eats. There is a stoic silence at the table that only I seem to notice. I watch him as he eats his food almost happily, content. How can a man who just lost his wife eat so happily? why can he not offer me any words of comfort? No happy memories of mom? He says through his bites of food, that he will sleep better tonight without my moms snoring and oxygen concentrator running. I am at a loss for words. That's true I mumble, angry at myself instantly for not defending her. I stopped eating half way through my plate. My stomach no longer growling, the exhaustion of the day settling in. I push my plate away. You are going to finish that right? my dad asks with a tone of admonishment, finally making eye contact with me. I feel like I am five again, having been starving for so many hours only to be forced to eat a huge plate of food until I felt sick to my stomach. I feel my body and brain go cold and numb. "Yes I will finish it", I reply. By the time I am done I feel sick to my stomach. The comfortable ache of familiarity. That's what you get for being such pig I can hear my own voice tell me. You get what you deserve my friend the voice continues to chime in. I swallow hard to choke back the tears, as the kids and my dad finish their meals. The rest of that night is lost on me. I could not tell you how I got home. I remember nothing from the rest of the evening. It was late, that's all I know.
The next morning I got up with the kids and went about our day like any other day, guilt and shame hitting me in the gut every few steps. I honestly didn't know what else to do. I felt so numb. Going to work felt like putting on a comfortable pair of jeans. The mask of happy work boss was easier than staying home. I got home from work early that day. All of the hospice equipment was already gone. My dad was elated. He bragged about how much room he had now and how he could store more stuff there. I felt like I got punched in the stomach. This was my mom. The person I had called 2-5 times a day, every day, for years. And he is HAPPY. The callousness of the man in front of me left me speechless and more heartbroken. The man in front of me was supposed to have loved my mom.
The numbness, the emptiness, the hollowed cavern where my soul used to be seemed frozen in time. I felt dead inside. Untethered to this world.
Days leaked into months, I changed jobs, aged a year, spent hundreds of hours and dollars trying to get my parents house cleaned enough to AirBNB it; finally renting it to a young couple. I made my dad breakfast every morning before continuing on with my day. My dads cancer continued to eat at him.
December arrived. The AC units already taken out of the windows, and the cold air at night were the only things really announcing winter. The last few days the pain from his cancer had gotten worse. He missed a dialysis visit. I was lifting him out of bed, rolling him to the bathroom and back, lifting him back into bed. I had requested antibiotics for a UTI, but they were slow to arrive. I called again and a third time. Finally after a week they were here. I didn't know death was already in the room waiting.
I awoke and went to make breakfast for my dad. I usually could hear his bed rising up, but lately he had been sleeping a little later. I made his breakfast and carried it into his room. I started talking to him before I even opened the door. "Hey dad, good morning, I brought you breakfast, are you up yet?" I fling the door open with a big smile on my face, only to find Death had already come and gone. He had already taken my dad. Stolen him before I could say good bye, before I could hug him. Before I could tell him I loved him. I didn't think I could break any further until that moment.
I did not check his pulse as I had my mom. There was no nurse here that needed reassurance of her assessment. The image of him laying there imprinting onto my brain. My dad, ghost grey and his mouth hung open in that awkward only in death way. I said to no one out loud: Oh you are already dead. I didn't know. Im sorry. As if I was interrupting deaths last act. I step out of the room and back into the kitchen. thankful in that moment that I am alone and I do not need to figure out what emotion I should or shouldn't be expressing. It doesn't matter anyway. I have felt dead inside for a long time at this point. I call hospice and the mortuary. I diligently do not look this time as they remove the body. Hospice comes and gets the bed and just like that both of them are gone. The room is empty again. No secret envelopes with letters telling me they loved me. No words of wisdom imparted to me before death. Just me standing there alone between deaths doors.
Photo by Luigi Boccardo on Unsplash
