Wednesday, May 18, 2016
Wednesday
My mom died alone in the tv room. The woman my dad was paying under the table to care for her was upstairs in the spare bedroom watching her chest rise and fall on a black and white baby monitor. She had her granddaughter for the night, and because Priscilla was our only overnight care provider, it meant the little girl was staying there overnight too. But mom's breathing, called Cheyne Stokes, was loud and probably frightening, so sometime late that night my dad closed the door to her little makeshift hospice. And that was it.
By that time I'd been driving up from Savannah every other week. Just the week before, my sister called in a panic to tell me Mom was dying and I needed to come. It wasn't the first time I'd been urgently summoned, but I was sure she was right this time. Mom was no longer vocal. Her eyes opened to our voices, but focused on some middle distance now. When she slept, which was most of the time, her breathing was quick and shallow. I drove up that evening and had dinner with my Dad. Mom was there, just out of sight. Hidden away, but always present.
I sat in the room with her that night after my Dad went to sleep. A table fan whirred in the dark as she moaned, lifting her swollen arm in slow circles. The tumors in her lymph nodes trapped fluid, painfully bloating her right arm. I could see her in silhouette from the light coming through the cracked door. "It's ok, mama, it's ok." was my whispered mantra.
She didn't die of course. The day-nurse said she was actually in pretty good shape, all things being what they were. She was stable and they couldn't predict when her condition might change. I should go home, the nurse said. No point waiting around.
A few days later, mom stopped digesting her food. They didn't stop feeding her just then. I suppose the instinct to feed is hard to overcome. But they figured it out soon enough. If I try, I can still hear any number of voices calling out "Come on Nancy." My father imploring her to sit up and eat, or one of many caretakers that passed through our house asking her to take a sip of water, or for her cooperation when it was time to change her bedding. "Come on Nancy."
Back in Savannah, Priscilla would text me updates. She'd stopped eating. She stopped drinking water. The day before she died Priscilla texted that purple streaks had appeared, creeping up from her heels. It's called mottling and it means drop your shit and come on. It's time. But I didn't know that then. At 1:00 am she texted that I should think about coming. I rolled over and went back to sleep. My plan was to sleep just a bit more and drive at first light. I woke up to a voicemail from my dad that she was gone.
My sister called me on the drive up, asking me to write something for the folks following her illness. I had no idea what to say. "Just tell them she passed, surrounded by loved ones." Not the truth, but palatable, and nice. I understand that what people need to believe is often different than what is so. That it was necessary to give everyone a comfortable out. but I still feel marked by it. The invention. Sometimes in a snide, passive aggressive fit I revisit her there, alone in that room. I rage at my ineffectiveness, at my father's cold compartmentalization, at the bottomless depths of my mother's suffering and humiliation.
And then in some tiny private cave, deep inside myself, where I am not angry and disappointed or ashamed, where magic and hope are hidden away, I think that maybe her gentle spirit rises up through the house paid for by her best efforts as artist and business woman, and up into that early July morning, higher and higher so that, looking out over the city she can see the glowing embers of all the lives she touched, all the bellies she fed and hearts that opened to her as their mother, sister, dear friend. And she'd see me, dreaming away in my bed. Dreaming away. I like to think, relieved of all that pain and stress, and fear, from that height she could see that she was surrounded by loved ones. Had been and would always be.
By that time I'd been driving up from Savannah every other week. Just the week before, my sister called in a panic to tell me Mom was dying and I needed to come. It wasn't the first time I'd been urgently summoned, but I was sure she was right this time. Mom was no longer vocal. Her eyes opened to our voices, but focused on some middle distance now. When she slept, which was most of the time, her breathing was quick and shallow. I drove up that evening and had dinner with my Dad. Mom was there, just out of sight. Hidden away, but always present.
I sat in the room with her that night after my Dad went to sleep. A table fan whirred in the dark as she moaned, lifting her swollen arm in slow circles. The tumors in her lymph nodes trapped fluid, painfully bloating her right arm. I could see her in silhouette from the light coming through the cracked door. "It's ok, mama, it's ok." was my whispered mantra.
She didn't die of course. The day-nurse said she was actually in pretty good shape, all things being what they were. She was stable and they couldn't predict when her condition might change. I should go home, the nurse said. No point waiting around.
A few days later, mom stopped digesting her food. They didn't stop feeding her just then. I suppose the instinct to feed is hard to overcome. But they figured it out soon enough. If I try, I can still hear any number of voices calling out "Come on Nancy." My father imploring her to sit up and eat, or one of many caretakers that passed through our house asking her to take a sip of water, or for her cooperation when it was time to change her bedding. "Come on Nancy."
Back in Savannah, Priscilla would text me updates. She'd stopped eating. She stopped drinking water. The day before she died Priscilla texted that purple streaks had appeared, creeping up from her heels. It's called mottling and it means drop your shit and come on. It's time. But I didn't know that then. At 1:00 am she texted that I should think about coming. I rolled over and went back to sleep. My plan was to sleep just a bit more and drive at first light. I woke up to a voicemail from my dad that she was gone.
My sister called me on the drive up, asking me to write something for the folks following her illness. I had no idea what to say. "Just tell them she passed, surrounded by loved ones." Not the truth, but palatable, and nice. I understand that what people need to believe is often different than what is so. That it was necessary to give everyone a comfortable out. but I still feel marked by it. The invention. Sometimes in a snide, passive aggressive fit I revisit her there, alone in that room. I rage at my ineffectiveness, at my father's cold compartmentalization, at the bottomless depths of my mother's suffering and humiliation.
And then in some tiny private cave, deep inside myself, where I am not angry and disappointed or ashamed, where magic and hope are hidden away, I think that maybe her gentle spirit rises up through the house paid for by her best efforts as artist and business woman, and up into that early July morning, higher and higher so that, looking out over the city she can see the glowing embers of all the lives she touched, all the bellies she fed and hearts that opened to her as their mother, sister, dear friend. And she'd see me, dreaming away in my bed. Dreaming away. I like to think, relieved of all that pain and stress, and fear, from that height she could see that she was surrounded by loved ones. Had been and would always be.
# posted by joel @ 9:14 AM 
