WARNING: If you do not want to hear details about my mother’s passing, then skip this post.
Hit a rough patch in the road that is life without parents, tonight. Sometimes the cogwheels in my cranium are stuck in turbo mode and I can’t shut the system down. I was feeling a bit lost this evening and just couldn’t figure out something to do to make things feel better, so I decided to take a little nap and see if that would help. As is usual for me, trying to fall asleep is a time when my thoughts seem to be the most invasive. Probably because I am trying to quiet the mind and relax so that I can sleep. Tonight that seemed like it was going to be impossible and I began having all sort of thoughts that I would rather not have. Those thoughts brought along their friends sadness and tears to join the party.
I was thinking about the moment that mom passed away. Dad passed while we were all out of the room so I have no idea what that process looked like with him. That is not the case with mom. I was right there, holding her hand and feeling her pulse as it got weaker and finally stopped altogether. Experiencing this event is a double edged sword though. I am both glad that I was able to be there and upset that I had to witness it.
I am not talking about this just to be shocking or to discuss the less bright side of my time caring for my mother. Actually, I think this is something that people do not often talk about and probably should. Not only to help prepare others who may have to go through this, but to maybe commiserate with those who have been there. I realize though that some people who know my mother may not want to know the details of her passing and I respect that, so if that is you then I would stop reading now.
My father was much less responsive than my mother at the end, so I imagine that my father’s passing was much less eventful and perhaps more peaceful. Mom was not like dad. I know that she was still aware and was simply too weak to speak. One of my biggest regrets is that I did not recognize this at the time and spend more time comforting mom and I think she might have needed it. Mom’s passing took a couple of minutes, but it seemed very fast and didn’t really offer me time to fully process the event. Perhaps if it had been in slow motion, much like the car accident I had when I was sixteen, then I could have thought about some of the things that were happening and made different decisions. Looking back over the events and putting the picture together I can tell now that my mother indeed had a heart attack that may or may not have been brought on by the startling noise that occurred when the metal box she kept her cross-stitch materials in fell off the ottoman where my sister had it setting. My mother was panicked. She was reaching out and had that wide eyed look as though she was fearful of what was happening. This image is stuck in my head.
This lasted for several minutes. At least long enough for my sister to tell my nephew to come get me because she was scared that something was happening. When I got to mom, I could see that she was in distress. I did not know immediately that she was in her last moments. I took her hand and told her that everything was alright. I told her that she can relax and let go. I told her she was strong and brave but that it was time for her to go. While I am pretty sure that she could hear me, I don’t know if she could understand what I was saying. She did not acknowledge me. She did not squeeze my hand or give any other sign that she understood me. She simply just stared right through me. She was tense and then finally relaxed. Her breathing stopped and then a rather frightening image happened when her neck tensed in what I can only describe as like a swallowing motion. This happened twice, as though she were trying to get air. About 30 seconds later I could no longer feel her pulse and she was gone. I would hate to think she would have to go through that alone, but at the same time there is seeing too much and I hate that I feel that way.
I not only have the memory of the physical process, that is how she looked and acted, but I have worries about her mental processes during this time. I hate to think that she was scared, but her physical appearance seemed to suggest that. I wish I could have heard her tell me that it was okay, just as I was telling her the same. I don’t know that it was okay. Did she have pain? Did she have fear? I know that a medical professional would tell me about endorphines and nervous system reactions and reassure me that all this was normal. That she felt little if anything in that moment. That is the intellectual answer though. I can know that part. It’s the emotional aspect that give me trouble and causes these thoughts and feelings in me. It is closure on that part that I cannot seem to achieve. Did she know we were there? Did she appreciate that or did she still think that she would not want us to go through that? Was the whole box thing a coincidence or did it have something to do with the timing of her passing?
While her actual passing was traumatic and causes me grief, it is not the only source of grief I am having. I have all sorts of feelings of regret that I cannot seem to reconcile simply because I cannot change the past. For instance, why didn’t I recognize that her level of consciousness was different than dad’s? Why didn’t I try different ways to communicate with her in the last few hours. After all this was over I though about simply holding her hand and asking her to squeeze it if she could hear me. Why couldn’t I have thought about that when I had the chance to do that? If I had, what would I have ‘talked’ with her about? Would there be anything important that I did not already know? I suppose if she was feeling alright, but I know she would have lied even if she was not feeling well. She had many more ‘bad’ days in the last nine months of her life than she let anyone know about. I was finally able to read her well enough to know when she was not being honest with me about how she was feeling. Most of all I wanted to know that I did alright by her. Of course I know that I did the best I could and I don’t know why it is so important for me to know that my best was good enough. Mom was a bit combative in the last month or so. We had a number of silly arguments. My sister was also concerned that I might not be doing the right things for her. The two of them butted heads over my mother’s weight just the weekend before she passed. There are little things like this that make me second guess the job I did. I really needed to hear her tell me that I did good.
When I finally did get to sleep, I was able to sleep for an hour or so before I had a dream that left me feeling happy and sad at the same time. I dreamt that I was on a cruise. It was a sea day and I heard someone talking about an approaching ship so I went up on deck to see what they were talking about. Another cruise ship was sailing by in the opposite direction. As the two ships passed, I could see on the deck of the other ship were my parents. We saw each other and waved. It was a happy moment. That moment turned sad though when I realized that they were getting further away. This is when I woke up. How cruel my mind could be. Of course it put me in a place where I could not hug them or talk to them or have more than a fleeting view of them.
Someday all this might not hurt so bad…