I couldn’t put my finger on how emotional I have been this
week. Was it hormones? Was it stress?
Looking at the calendar.... OH....Last week of February. Urgh.
THAT week. 22 years ago, from
Monday to Friday at 2:22PM, I sat vigil next to my mom’s hospital bed. I slept on a single cot, next to my sister,
spooning every night. I shouldn’t say
slept, it was more of a drifting in and out.
We took turns watching the clock to make sure at the top of every 4th
hour we would ring the nurse and ask for the medication that kept mom “comfortable”. Hmmppff. Comfortable. If you call watching her thrash around, moan,
not be able to speak and then go still in slumber, sure, she was
comfortable. After the doctors visited
every morning for their rounds, I would head to my In-Laws house to shower and
get back to the hospital.
During the day different visitors would stop by. I couldn’t look them in the eye. They looked at me, knowing, my mom would be
gone soon. They had so much pain for me.
If I looked at them, I would see it and then I would be trying to
comfort them. So instead, I just avoided
their eyes. We would leave the room so
they could visit with my mom and say their goodbyes. At the time I didn’t realize she talked to
most of them. She spoke of her pain of
knowing she was leaving four kids behind.
She had guilt. When we were in
the room, she said almost nothing. She shut
us out. Closed door. It took years later for me to grasp that she
didn’t lock me out because she wanted to hurt me, but she wanted to protect
me. Her guilt was decades deep. Her drinking.
Her smoking. It was all catching
up to her, that week. I have resentment
that the final days I had with my mom were filled with silence and not the messages
I needed to hear. The stories,
platitudes, teaching moments and direction she had already given me over 23
years would need to carry me on for the rest of my life.
A family friend who was also a Bereavement counselor stopped
by to see my mom and say goodbye. She
told me it was important for my mom to hear me say that it was OK for her to
go, to pass on. So, that is what I did. I told mom so many times that it was ok to
let go and be still. When she took her
final breath, I was next to her. There
was relief that she wasn’t in pain anymore.
That she wasn’t struggling to breathe.
She wouldn’t be tied to an Oxygen supply ever again. Yet, she wouldn’t be in that new relief state
with me. She was gone. I get glimpse of that new mom in my dreams
and I know I will see her again someday.
So why am I so emotional
this week? I can’t find the words to
tell anyone, even my dear sweet Joe who feels my quietness and wants to make
everything better. It is like I am
replicating moms silence that week. I don’t
ever want to make anyone feel the way I did during her final week. Hence…. This entry.
