The holidays are usually an emotionally challenging period for me. On November 17, 2004, my mother made a decision to leave the hospital where she had spent several days battling complications from a cancer called multiple myeloma and teaching her three daughters to cross-stitch. She had opted for hospice care in my home...my dining room to be specific. Her decision came after a compassionate attending gave her a two-week prognosis, the only one we'd ever received during her decade-plus-long war with this disease. In the previous months we'd heard words like "soon", "prepare", "can't predict". But, to a family and cancer survivor who had experienced miracles and second chances against a keen backdrop of borrowed time, "soon" really didn't mean anything. "Two weeks," did.
My mother, a quiet warrior, didn't believe that she was really so close to death at the time. I remember the doctor explaining that keeping her on IV fluids at home might extend her life a bit longer but could also exacerbate complications with her heart and ultimately have the opposite effect. He inquired about her "time objectives", as it was clear she wasn't going for the "just go home and die" option. This woman, who I believe only fought the relapse of her cancer because of my son and her undying desire to go on a Carnival cruise in a few months (she was saving nickels for the slot machines) actually told the doctor that she had plans in September...seriously, a cruise.
"Um, Mom, I think he's talking weeks maybe, not months."
Did. Not. Compute.
Well, not until a week later, a week before she passed. She was sitting, propped up against her headboard in what has again become my dining room, paralyzed on her left side and unable to speak (the effects of the stroke she'd had the day before), when I asked, "You didn't believe him when he said two weeks, did you?" She shook her head. "You do now?" She nodded...peacefully.
Here's the thing, the terrible morbid thing. For years after she passed, my only memories of my Mom were mostly of those last two weeks. Her face swollen from steroids and fluids being pumped into a body unable to process them; all the books I'd read, so I could explain to her, at her request, what to expect as her body slowly stopped functioning; guilt from believing I had over-medicated her with morphine and decongestant before I understood that her paralysis was from a stroke, a normal part of the dying process; hoping for just one more wet bed pad to prove her body was still working; shifting her in an effort to help the morphine numb the pain; horribly silent moments between breaths, wondering if each was the last. All these memories and so many others that I won't bore you with here haunted me for a long, long time.
But, here's the other thing, the other memory that won't leave me even in my weakest moments. My mother, again, unable to speak, days away from dying, nothing to lose by being brutally honest... "Ma, I bet you didn't think that in a million years, I would be the one to manage all this, did you?" She shook her head. "But, you see that I'll make sure they're OK, right? She nodded.
See, of the three of us, I am the least responsible, the most impulsive, the least respectful, the one most likely to take the path less travelled by most people for damn good reasons...the last one any of us expected to step fully into the role of big sister and eldest daughter. Not even my mother would have predicted it on her death bed.
But I did it.
I became this unrecognizable person who was so familiar all at the same time. And, even during that time, I found joy in that process of growing into womanhood. Even then, I was thankful for the opportunity to serve my mother; to make up for any pain I had caused her; to do any and everything to be the daughter she'd imagined at my birth; to demonstrate my gratitude in ways that I couldn't have imagined. I put my signature self-absorption, my fears, my self-doubt, even my pain aside, to open myself up to all that she wanted to teach me for those fourteen days...and beyond. And, I found joy.
It may sound crazy to some people. Death is hard to face, especially when it's literally staring at you...and it's your Mom. But, to date, besides the birth of my son, which my mother was able to witness, I cannot imagine a greater joy than to serve at my mother's feet as she transitioned. I promise you, I would do it again without being asked.
Today is the day my mother expanded to become part of this universe that embraces us. The beauty of her face, her life before death no longer escape me. Every year brings better memories. Today, marks four years, and I will keep counting.
I love you, Mom.
