I have been wanting to get something off my chest for a while now. My mother died in July, and I have not really discussed the experience with anyone, but I want to talk about it. So, I'm talking.
My mother was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma around her 70th birthday in '98. Being the woman she was, she did not take it lying down. She fought it, even though she knew it was incurable - treatable, but not curable. So she went through chemo and radiation and bone marrow treatments, struggling to hold onto a another few precious months. She gave herself almost 6 years, but they were six years of severe ups and downs from the various treatments. Finally, last May, her doctor said he couldn't do anymore. She still fought it, but she knew she was losing every day.
My sister came down from CT to be here in June, "until the end," she said. We cared for her - with the help of the Mariposa Hospice - and watched her deteriorate more and more every day. She did get to see her youngest great-grandson before she was too mentally gone. But once the slide had started, it was a steep descent.
Neither my sister nor I wanted to watch this, but we felt it our duty to do so, We had to: she needed us to be with her. And she was in my home/her home, so there were no hospitals involved at the end - we'd had enough of them. When the time drew near, our hospice nurse showed us the signs. So we were not surprised when the time finally came. I am not going to go into detail because it is not something I want to relive that graphically. I will say that we spoke to her, told her everything would be all right, and I feel that we helped her to release herself from her mortal body and go someplace better. For all the fighting she did to remain on earth, once she was gone, she was gone. No "presence," no nothing. Just gone. And that was my mom. She was always ready to do something new and leave the old behind.
I had never experienced death in any form except for having to put beloved pets to sleep. I had only an idea of what to expect. I have found that once you watch someone die, death becomes its own entity. It hovers about my consciousness because now I know what happens. And it's not pleasant. All those fake movie and TV deaths just don't even come close to the reality. I was watching the Buffy episode entitled "The Body" the other day. In it, Buffy comes home to find her mother dead on the living room couch. It's a rather moving and disturbing episode, but what disturbed me most was that she didn't look dead. I kept thinking she looked just like an actress trying hard to keep from moving. Her eyes were wide open and obviously alert. The eyes don't look like that. Dead eyes glaze over, and that's the image that will stay with me most powerfully.
My mother's death was drawn out and painful. We kept her on morphine and other painkillers just to keep her comfortable. I kept thinking that it shouldn't have to be like this. When I put my animals to sleep, it was quick and painless. Why can we not show as much compassion to our own family? A couple of times, she actually asked us if she could just take a pill. What can you say except, "sorry?"
My mother's cousin had died several months before; she had developed some kind of tumor. We never really knew the details, since she still lived in Chicago. But we did know that she refused to see a doctor. She said she knew it was her time to go, and there was no point in prolonging it. My sentiments exactly. If I am ever diagnosed with Cancer or some other fatal disease, I will wrangle myself a bottle of barbituates and buy a bottle of scotch - single malt. I do not intend to go through that, and I sure as hell don't want my son to go through it, either.
At the time, it didn't seem that hard; we just did what had to be done. But as the sounds and images continue to haunt me, it becomes more difficult to deal with. And I miss my mother more and more every day. I had been under the impression that grief was supposed to subside after a while, not get worse. Silly me.
I'm not trying to sound bitter or angry. It's just that being at my mother's bedside was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. But it was also the most important. I hope never to have to go through that again. Once is more than enough.
Posted by Alexandra at February 1, 2005 09:37 AMVery powerful post. My husband had a similiar experience with his mother & cancer... he moved back to PA from college in TX to take care of her for the last three years while she did chemo & radiation. She just held on and held on, despite the pain. Finally on his birthday he told her it was ok to let go, that he'd be ok, and she did. To say that he was forever changed by her death is an understatement. He's still very much rocked by it over 10 years later.
I wanted to tell you that your post was very moving. I can tell you loved your mother deeply and you miss her terribly. I hope you will have a little bit more peace every day.
(((hugs to you)))
Roxanne - also a homeschooling mom. I saw your link on the UU list.
Posted by: RoxanneR in PA at February 2, 2005 07:19 AMThanks for sharing this. Yes, very powerful. My mother said the same about being at her mother's bedside, painful but important.
Again, thanks for this.
Posted by: anna at February 2, 2005 05:46 PMMy deepest sympathies - and you have so aptly described my greatest fears, as my mother is fairly elderly and facing a rather serious operation. I am afraid to face her mortality and am hanging on to every minute.
Beautifully and sensitively written, Alexandra
Posted by: rufus at February 4, 2005 01:41 PM
Wow ... brought some tears to my eyes.
The pain does not seem to go away. I can
still get tears in my eyes very easily by
thinking about my dad, and it has been 2.5
years now. But it does dull a bit. As a
friend said, everything else in life will
have a bittersweet tinge because someone
you want to share it with will not be there.
Jeff
My mom died this past Thanksgiving. She was the third in my immediate family to die. First my father died of cancer at age 70 about 16 years ago. Then my fiance died in a motorcycle accident at age 35. Though not in my family his death was by far the most difficult for me. Then one of my brothers died of cancer at age 39, way too young for such an incredible human being. But my mother hung on 'til a few days before her 81st birthday. Amazing. She died of the same cancer my brother had, a cancer the doctors had assured us was not genetically linked. Now they say, um, well, maybe it is.
My mother had been a hospice volunteer for decades so when my father received his diagnosis he immediately signed up for hospice care and went very quickly, in about three weeks. My brother who was young and rich could not believe that he could not beat his cancer, a rare and very aggressive, very deadly cancer. He went through radiation and chemo that only made his last months on earth miserable and prolonged. My mother knew exactly what she wanted to do. She wanted to go with hospice care as soon as possible. From the time the doctors finally formally diagnosed her with this rare form of cancer she lived another 12 days. We got her into a hospice facility on day 5 and she had 7 comfortable days there. She knew that if she stopped eating she would go very fast, so that is exactly what she did.
But, yes, death is not pretty the way Hollywood usually portrays it. I am forever grateful that my mother involved herself in hospice so that we knew about this wonderful option. And I know that I will look for the same thing when it is my time. My father was incredibly grateful since he had just buried one of his own brothers a few months before his own diagnosis and he was determined that he would not go through radiation and chemo, that he would not lie in a hospital bed suffering, begging for pain killers as his brother had done. He stayed at home and hospice came to our home. My brother stayed at home, in the end, and hospice was there to provide pain relief.
My mother had to be put in an in-patient facility since we had complications with her husband of four years who was a complete nut case and who made her dying much more complicated for all of us. I suppose in one way that it helped, because we had him to focus on and didn't waste our time clinging to our mother. The nicest thing about the in-patient hospice facility was that all of us could be there, stay in her room, or scattered around the wonderful facility, visiting with each other, getting all the closure we needed. Her husband was not there most of the time because the hospice facility had threatened him if his terrible behavior continued. He is legally blind and could not drive himself to the facility so he was only there part of each day. At one point he had threatened to blow the place up with his oxygen tanks. Very sad.
The beautiful thing about her death was that we recognized that she was being held by this husband, that she was waiting for him to release her. And he was refusing to do that. And she was waiting for him to sign papers allowing her to be cremated, which he also refused to do after promising her that he would do so. Finally his son, a pastor, came and talked to him and convinced him to keep his word and sign the cremation papers. He had not lifted his hand from signing the paperwork when the nurse came running to tell us that Mom had gone into a seizure. We all ran to her side and then left her alone with him. He sat with his son, the pastor, and finally leaned over to tell her that he loved her and she could go now. With that she took her last breath and was gone. Zap! The pastor said it made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He had never seen anything like this before.
We were all relieved and grateful. We did not hold a memorial service because we all had to be elsewhere. But we are planning one this August when one of our nieces is getting married and we will all be together again. We will schedule the memorial service in the VA cemetery we chose where we will bury both my father's and mother's ashes together. They were married for 44 years before his death, had eight children together, and both were veterans. Mom's late life second marriage was short, though not short enough for our liking, and anything but happy. We had hoped that she had found someone who really loved her, but it turned out he was a very tortured soul who made her last years a living hell.
I do not feel haunted by my mother's death. Perhaps because of the other two death experiences. I know she was ready to go and she went the way she wanted to go with hospice care. I do miss her, often find myself thinking I should phone her, or wondering what she is doing, then catching myself, remembering that she is gone. I can assure you that this kind of thing fades eventually. But we always remember them, think about them, are reminded of them.
The most difficult death for me was that of my fiance who was killed in a motorcycle accident two months before we were to be married. That one took me a very long time to get over, if I ever got over it. I did marry someone else, and do have a beautiful child who I have been unschooling for the past 11 years. But I would say that his death still haunts me. Perhaps because I cannot ever wholly accept it. Perhaps because it was so sudden, so unexpected.
Hang onto the good memories, good thoughts, and hopefully your experience will make facing the next death in your life easier. Perhaps. It has for me.
Norma
Posted by: Norma at February 8, 2005 10:13 AM