For Mom

Sometimes as you grieve, you torture yourself.  I was listening to old voicemails my mother had left me.  I just wanted to hear her voice.  Reassuring at times, hard to listen to at others.  Yes, many of the calls were of her cries to escape the decade long hell in which she found herself - a nursing facility.  For those of you who have stuck with this blog over the years you'll recall the desperate plight of the woman who raised me.  In 2007, my mother had surgery on her sacral area.  It had somehow devolved into a literal black hole.  The surgery was successful.  The rehabilitation was not.

She was admitted to a very modest nursing home that had at least three name changes during her eleven years there.  The PT department tried and tried to get her out of bed.  The time they finally succeeded, they somehow let her fall.  She never walked or even stood up again.  In the first months and years I made scenes, yelled, cried.  How could this happen? I exclaimed that the facility was a temporary stop, not a final destination.  She agreed, and would sometimes seem truly motivated to make the effort.  But along the way it was as if she made some sort of fatal decision.  As if she had passed from life long before November 7th, 2018.  I felt helpless. The bed sores got worse.  A colostomy became necessary.  Her words were just that, words.  Months and years slipped away.  I couldn't muster the energy to light a fire any longer.  I was out of ideas.  I had to just be an encourager until the inevitable day.

It came earlier this month.  I received frantic calls from the hospital. ICU.  She was having an aggressive bout of tachycardia.  She was gravely ill, I was told.  I had to race from work.  By the time I arrived, she was on a ventilator.  Seeing her body rise and fall in that bed was possibly the saddest thing I've witnessed.  I burst into tears and had to retreat to the window.  I composed myself long enough to get the details from the nurse and later the physician.  There was no coming back.  Her consciousness was gone, not to return.  I had the POA to keep the ventilator going.  For awhile I agonized, but I knew what had to happen.  A tougher decision I hope I never face.

I watched as her body eventually stopped moving.  More tears.  I spent a few hours talking to her, now the earthly shell of a woman who once held my infant self in the Brooklyn snow.  Tolerated my junior high school brat in the Florida sun.  Cried to me when my father verbal abused her.  Waved back to me the day she left him.  The memories were fast and furious, unstoppable.  They remain so.  More torture.  Healthy, necessary, but damned hard.  That afternoon was long as I waited for my wife to join me.  She likewise busted into tears as she entered.  We held each other and eventually said goodbye to Grace.

I could've done more.  I should've done more.  These quiet yet urgent declarations will haunt me.

My last visit was eight days prior.  It was like most of the past few years.  Mom was propped ninety degrees, watching one of the CSI programs on television.  She was half awake, but lucid enough to ask about my day.  By now, and for quite some time, there were no more empty promises to finally get out of bed.  Her legs had atrophied to mere sticks. She was still doing word search puzzles and reading her Bible. She wanted something sweet.  I got her a wafer cookie and a Sprite.  A treat for her.  I had to feed it directly to her.  I prayed with her, kissed her, and said goodbye.  I had always wondered when the last one would be.

The memorial was on Nov. 17th at Tillman Funeral Home in West Palm Beach.  Family run.  They did an amazing job with every detail.  I highly recommend them.  My wife's great aunt also passed, just this week, and had her services there two days ago.  Bradley Zahn, the owner, officiated my mother's day with comforting and challenging words.  Some of the service featured Grace's favorite Bible verses and lyrics from a song she wrote.  I somehow got it together to say a few things myself.   Family, friends, and co-workers came out to pay respects and socialize in a dining room afterward.  My in-laws put together some wonderful hors d'ouevres.

I could fill multiple entries on this subject.  Maybe I will.  Many have reached out in ways that have delighted and surprised me.  It is humbling.  I thank and love you all. 

R.I.P., mom. I love you.  See you later.