Memories of my Mom

This is the story of the last weeks with my Mom before she died from cancer. As usual I’m unapologetically sweary.

(You’ll get the reference. My Mom would’ve loved this!)

I was living in Texas when I got a call from the director of the ICU at the hospital up in the Midwest where she lived at the time.  There had been a huge mistake. On a 911 call to my Mom’s house that her neighbor made upon finding her unresponsive, the EMTs did not search for her standing DNR in the designated places. They started morphine, oxygen and other life saving techniques on an end stage cancer patient with a DNR. 

The Director said, “the ER staff, also, didn’t research her file properly and intubated her.” I just about fell over. I yelled at her, “what do you mean you intubated her??” 

After quite a conversation (that involved me running upstairs to my bedroom, crying, hiding from my kids and generally trying to keep myself from falling apart) I made the plan that the ICU staff would not extubate her until I got there so she wouldn’t be with strangers on a machine when she died. 

Not only did I learn my mother had died and coded but they brought her back and now she was on full life support. They were keeping her alive and now it was my responsibility to take that life away. 

I flew north. I got held overnight due to snow. When I got there the next day I walked to her room and she was sitting up on her bed. 

SITTING THE FUCK UP. 

Her memory was severely impaired. She didn’t know who I was, why she was inpatient. She kept ripping her IVs out. She was highly agitated and stressed. Anxious. It took hours but the doctors booted her out to my care. 

Uhhhm. What? What was that? 

Oh, right, because I’m a social worker and a therapist. I have the skill set for this. It doesn’t matter that this is my mother dying after you people fucked up and brought her back to life and she’s not the same.

The nurse took me aside and told me she gave my mom - maybe- 14 days to live. 

She was dead in 12. 

I was so grateful to that nurse. I told my Mom the day after we got home with hospice what the nurse said. My mom asked how much time she had. The hospice nurse wasn’t going to answer her but I did.  With love but I was direct. I’ll never forget the look in her eyes when the gravity of it hit her. I hope I never have to tell someone I love they have a couple weeks to live ever again. 

I told her I wouldn’t leave her side until she left mine. I’ve always hoped that made her feel a little comfort. 

The next 12 days were filled with lawyers, signing wills, paperwork. By day 3 that was done. By day 4 my mom stopped seeing anyone to say their goodbyes. She couldn’t do it. 

We stayed up every night until 3am and watched Seinfeld or Fraser because she believed each day should end with a laugh. We talked for hours and hours. She apologized and healed past traumas she causedg in my childhood. She admitted things I never knew. She surprised me over and over. 

She had always wanted to eat pie with a fork directly out of its pan. She’d never done it because it wasn’t “ladylike” or “proper”. What’s hilarious is that while my Mom followed Molly Manners she was a Broad thru and thru. These bits and pieces were a big part of who she was. How she was raised. 

Back to Pie. Her fave was pecan. Everyday for 12 days I bought fresh muffins from the bakery for her breakfast. Well it became pie day. I brought home a pecan pie. I placed it in front of her with a fork, napkin, a glass of milk and said, “here you go!” 

After nibbling on one toasted nut and giggling like she was being really naughty she admitted she just “couldn’t do it”. This made me realize that for all of her hot air she blew, the front she put up throughout my life of being tough, knowing it all, nothing ever bothered her, now she’s the dying woman who can’t take a bite of pie out of the middle of the tin because she’d be breaking a 50 year old rule. 

What did I do? What I always did. I walked over to her, hand over hand as I cheekily smiled at her and said, “here. This is how you do it” as I literally had my hand “show” her hand how to scoop a huge, messy, gooey piece right out of the center! She smiled and said, “that’s my girl! Hey? Where’s the ice cream?”

She needed permission. Yes, from her youngest daughter but I was there. I showed up. I was bearing witness to the most intimate moments of her life. The very last breaths, words, actions and eating pies from the inside out. 

Forward to the 2 hours before she died. 

She’d been unconscious for a few days. I was alone with her. Hospice only came 1 hour a day. I could’ve taken her to a hospice facility but I promised her I wouldn’t. I had gone 72 hours with 2 hours of broken sleep. I was starting to lose it for all the reasons you can imagine. 

I didn’t know how loud the dying are. She was so extremely loud. All the time. There were so few breaks in her mumbling. No words. Vocalizations. It was disturbing and upsetting. I was able to walk her even in her advanced state from her bed to living room. On that last night I was administering liquid morphine every hour. I was talking to hospice and we were in the middle of a storm. The next door neighbor came over. She was my mom’s bestie. She said goodbye to her. She went home. 

I told my mom I was with her but I had to sleep. I told her it was ok to die while I slept. That I was right there and not to be afraid. 

****As an aside She was an atheist (hated the church) and the day before shockingly in her unconscious state she talked and said “Kirk...Sheryl’s here (Dad and sister)... a man... There there...there...Jesus... over there to help” those were her last words. It blew me away! My whole life she’d never talked like this. 

So, I conked out and when I woke up 45 minutes later the energy was completely different in the room. I knew she was gone before I looked at her. I felt entirely alone. And I was. 

The funeral home couldn’t come for 2.5 hours because of the roads. She started changing color. It was hard for me to look at her as she started turning yellowish grey. I mean - she was GONE. This in front of me was her vessel. A bag of bones nothing more. 

It was truly one of the most deeply profound experiences of my life and also disturbing in a few ways. 

I was alone through the experience. I had a friend here or there. I had no family. It was me. It was endearing and sweet and painful and funny and so hard and I’m glad to have most of the memories. 

I miss her. She died at 68. She survived uterine cancer at 30. Diagnosed with 2 types of breast cancer at 61. Then developed COPD with primary colon cancer with the Breadt cancer that killed her in the end. 

I’m glad for every moment for those 12 days. Especially pie and Seinfeld. 

Thanks for reading.