My mother’s passing

My mother hasn’t died yet, but she is passing away already. She’s sleeping more and translating the activities of the present and past less fluently.

Monday she obsessed about a brown blanket and the fight people had in her room over it. I asked questions to try to determine if she meant a black scarf that had come in the mail last week that I opened in her room or if this memory was about something else. As I was going through her mail I came to a full-page glossy ad and Mom got excited, saying “You found it. That’s the blanket.” So a brown blanket had never actually been delivered to her. But nevertheless the “memory” was strong for her and upseting. She wanted to just shake them (whoever they were) for fighting over something that was hers. She brought it up several times during both my visits this week.

So she’s passing away. She’s passing to places I can’t navigate. I just don’t have enough clues to use or the proper instruments. They don’t make a dementia GPS. Until now I’ve been pretty good at being able to wander through the world she’s described to me and understand it in terms of what I know about her past and how she thinks. She doesn’t seem to think the same way any longer. And her past is now murky and its pathways lost in the fog. So of it is kind of cute. She wonders how many times she was married because she’s sure it couldn’t just be that one time she remembers. Some of it is a little unsettling like when she asked me if I had a daddy.

When my father died it was all so much easier. He had been going to doctors and having tests to determine why he no longer had an appetite and it was hard to swallow. I called Mom and Dad one Mother’s Day, and Mom told me that Dad had told her not to be alarmed if he died during the night. He declared that he was through with doctors and that he was dying. He still looked healthy to me, but I took him at his word and flew to Texas to help get him hospice care.

Dad took control of the process as much as possible. He insisted on having a do not resuscitate form completed and prominently posted above his bed before he would allow a nurse into the house. He told me what to gather together in his workshop and who should get what. He eventually had the hospital bed put in the middle of the living room. He had me call a family friend and make sure that Mom could move in with her after he died. He tried to discharge all his responsibilities.

He had one big meal of catfish after I arrived and then stopped eating. He talked about WWII. He and I spent a lot of time just sitting together, with me massaging his legs and feet. We began saying good-bye, knowing exactly what we were doing. And, for the most part, doing it in silence. I have a powerful memory of laying next to him in bed and his fingers curling around in my hair. In that way he told me all I needed know and I completely accepted and acknowledged his love.

After the hospice nurse came and I explained his care schedule to him, Mom and I talked about whether or not either of us would be able to give him an overdose if he requested one. Mom didn’t think she could. I was pretty sure that I’d have a hard time, but that I could. He tried morphine once and declared that he hated the dreams it gave him and would not take it again. So neither Mom nor I ever were confronted with the reality of an administered overdose. Dad would die on his own.

Which he did, but it took several weeks. We watched him starve. This is not an easy thing to do, but it did give us time to say good-bye and understand what death means. It made me incredibly angry with death. I felt like the Grim Reaper was loafing somewhere and not doing his job. I became certain that if Dad asked for an overdose I would have given it to him. Being made to wait for death when you had already put out the welcome mat for him seemed cruel.

I’ve never thought of death as a terrible thing. Maybe because when I was in high school I was able to have a long talk with a woman who had been in and out of hospice care three times. This was a woman who was angry with death for taking so long. She was very comfortable talking about being ready to go, even while she had her nails painted every week and her lipstick applied every day. She was an amazing teacher.

I’m not sure what happens after death but I’m incredibly curious about it. It seems like it must be a great adventure. You’ll finally know the great mystery. Everyone learns it eventually, and I’m in no hurry to rush to the discovery, but I am excited about the future after life is past. I don’t know for certain that there is a new form of life after death, but I believe that there is. If there if conservation of mass, why not conservation of soul? Life is amazing and wondrous, so why not death?

So I’m not worried about Mom’s death. I think I look forward to it on her behalf. Like you’d look forward to someone’s graduation or wedding or other major life event. I’d like for death to allow her through those gates, pearly or otherwise, before she loses touch with her life here and now.

What does frighten me is that Mom’s life will become confusing, confounding and comfortless. I want her to be able to leave it while still having a sense of wonder about all that life has offered her. I want her to be able to tell me what she wants before she dies, just like Daddy did. I want to be able to give her a few last gifts before she leaves for a new world.

I feel blessed in that I don’t have anything that I wish I could say or wish I could do before Mom dies. I don’t feel like there’s anything I need to be forgiven for or to forgive.

I do hope that I get to be near her when she dies. I was holding Dad’s hand when he passed away. And Mom and I were able to wash his body before we called the hospice. That times alone with his body was very moving and healing. Mom thought she wouldn’t be able to touch the body after Daddy died. But we both found it comforting. We had already said good-bye to the man we knew and washing his body let us say good-bye to it, too. I’d like that experience again, but I think Mom might be the type of person who wants privacy when she goes. And I can respect that. It’s probably what I would choose, too.

My friends should know that after Mom does die, I won’t be grieving in the manner that seems to be expected. I’ll be excited for Mom. I’ll feel relief that I don’t have to care for her. I’ll feel relief that she’s no longer upset by things which haven’t actually happened. I’ll have her ashes in my living room, mixed in with her husband’s. I won’t have a funeral unless her friends want one. And I’ll only want people there who knew her, and who can tell funny or endearing stories about her.

After Dad died, Mom and I went to the grocery store, bought orange juice with pulp (which Dad didn’t like so Mom never bought), and came home with a carpet cleaner. Mom was ready to move on her own life because she had already said good-bye. I think I’ll be like that. So don’t be surprised if I want to celebrate a little after my mother dies. It doesn’t mean that I didn’t love her, but that I’m thrilled to see her off to the solve the great mystery.