The Final Goodbye

I called my mother in law.
We were chatting.

My cell phone rang.
I ignored it.
It rang again.
I ignored it.
It rang again.

My msn window was blinking. Only my sister and brother in law use it.
I checked it.
Are you there?
Yes.
Your sister is calling and calling. Your mother REALLY wants to talk to you.

I hung up on my mother in law, told her I had to go and picked up the phone.

My sister said "She REALLY wants to talk to you."

I said Hello.
My mother cried.
She said she my older brother was going to try to get there tomorrow.
She said she wanted to see him one more time.
She said she felt strange.
She said she loved me. I said I loved her.
I said she was the best mom in the world.
She said I was her best daughter.
I told her it would be okay.
She said she believed me.
She got it together then.
And didn't cry.
I told her I loved her.
Again and again.
I told her she'd always be with us.
That she'd not be without us.
She said she loved me.
She said Bye.

She wants to see her boys. I know she wants to see me. It's never enough, you know, you can never spend enough time with the ones you love. I saw her mothers' day, talked to her almost every day after, and I would love to be there right now, right then, to hold her, but then, how much is enough? Would I hold her for days? My sister is there. She is holding her. She could make it out there. That means the world. That is good. Because not all of us can be there.

I don't want to really say bye.
I don't want to never feel her again.
But wants are nothing.
She is dying.
We are flying out on Monday.

Waiting Room

I see my mom. She's in a waiting room. She has an appointment she can't miss, and she's sitting in the waiting room, and she can't leave the waiting room because she can't miss the appointment, and she showed up 15 minutes early like she was supposed to, but it's still not her appointment time, so she's just waiting.

There's no way out of the waiting room. Her appointment is very close. All she can do is wait, and her mind set is that of someone waiting. She sits in a white waiting room sitting hunched and all alone in a gray chair in a row of gray chairs, snacking on grapes, swinging her feet back and forth like a bored child, in her nightgown, wondering when it will be her appointment time, tired of sitting there, thinking nothing, imagining nothing, just sitting there bored and hoping to just get the appointment over with, waiting for someone to come get her.

That is what I envision when I try to comprehend what it is she is going through, these last days.

They are going to talk to my father about hospice care now. It's a matter of days to weeks.

She is too out of it to dwell on it. In a book, it seems, that this is all natural, the body shuts down and the mind withdraws, to prepare for its death.

I'm sure we all want to know, where, where does the mind go?

Morphine

I think it's safe to assume that morphine is the last drug.

Once you are on morphine, it's just to tide you over until your body finally gives up.

My mom came home from the hospital Wednesday and went in again last night. She's home again, and has a doctor appointment on Tuesday.

Now both her legs are swollen, and she has two blood clots, and the only pain medicine that will work is morphine, which she takes a bit of every few hours. She uses a wheelchair when they leave the house, but they don't usually leave the house except for doctor's appointments and hospital trips.

My dad is thinking that now the doctor will start talking hospice care rather than pallative care. Both are often done in home. She's on pallative care now, but there was always the understanding that it would go to hospice.

She was feeling fine before Easter. By Mother's Day, she was much worse, when I saw her. Now, her body seems to be aggressively seeking to shut down.

I know I will never see her again. That was what Mother's Day was for. We all knew that.

Some people walk out the door with a 'see you next week' and then lose that person. I knew I would never see her again.

Our relationship is such that we were able to just 'be' together. We've always had a close, great relationship, only marred by the fact we were often so far apart.

Still,

She doesn't have much time left, and the time she has, is full of pain.

And I still haven't really stopped to think how I actually feel about it, because it's not so much about me, as it is her.

She still calls me. I still call her. Even if she's on a lot of medication she makes the effort to call, and I'll listen.

Ah. Well.

What is there to do.

Hospital, take three

My mom is in the hospital.

This is the third time since Easter, but I think only the second she's stayed overnight.

She's not feeling well at all. I think it's kidney problems because the tumor is blocking that whole area. She told my sister she doesn't think she'll get to see anyone else. That's not necessarily true.

We think she'll see my little brother and her sisters, and hope so, but it doesn't look good.

I'm detaching right now, I know I am. I am avoiding this blog, avoiding thinking about it, and not reacting to it. I don't know what I should think about it. I don't want her to die, but I don't want her to live like this, and I don't really have a say or choice in the matter. Death has marked her, it has claimed her, and soon it will take her, and I'm upset that it is this way.

I will call her tomorrow, but our conversations don't help her anymore. She's too weak and sick to talk, but I won't not call, though I didn't today. My sister told me she was in the hospital. Getting out of the hospital doesn't mean she will feel better. I don't know. One day, she won't leave the hospital.

I know there is a lot of emotion in me, I know it's there, but it's under the surface, waiting. I know that there's a lot I wish were different, and a lot of anger, not at my mother, never her, not ever, but at the situation, and at the fact that there is no one who can even come close to who she is to me. But those are emotions that will come up, I imagine, another day.

Not so bright

Not that they could be bright.

She was in bed when I called today, and this is not normal for her. She likes to be up, and prefers her big comfy chair to her bed.

Avoiding the topic

I notice I am doing this a lot. This is why posts on this page are rarer than posts on the other.

I called my mother today, I think she was about to cry. It's not fair, screams the child in me. It's life, says the adult. It sucks, both agree.

She is worried about her hair, but it's only thinning, she's not going to lose it. She chose the less toxic chemo after all, the one that will just make her feel a little better, when it's done making her feel sick.

We've bought her hair scarves and caps that she can wear even while she has hair. Her hair is great. A mix of salt and pepper. Not fading, gray, barely silver, but pure salt and pepper. She wore it well, she's cute. It looks good on her. But that is neither here nor there because she is neither here nor there, but in between. Halfway between life and death, heading, spiraling, drifting closer and closer to death, all the while feeling mostly crappy.

I am not opposed to death, in the sense that all things must die, and to die is natural, even when the cause is not the natural breakdown of age, but a tragedy or a misfortune. I am a big believer in dying well. If you can. I mean to say, dying with hope, or with a fight, or in action, or asleep in your bed peacefully, or suddenly, with no warning, or with a final last conclusive thought... but to die in pain, and suffering, as so many do, I am not a fan of that, and it grates on me that the only thing we can do is medicate medicate medicate, until the pain and suffering become too much, and she's in bed and can't move, and then slowly drifts off... neither here, nor there, but in between, a place none of us belong.

Death is a hard thing, and I think, I am not dealing well with losing my mom. I could never survive losing a child, I say that. To see their laugh, and then to lose it forever? But then, how many parents who've lost a child thought the same?

My friend lost his mother unexpectedly. She passed away May 11, after he'd seen her at Christmas. He said he's glad he saw her at Christmas, and glad he talked to her on the phone after her first surgery. It still is hard, since, really, we have faith in something, we believe in something, and all that good stuff, but it's the one thing we don't understand. It's not the moving on part, it's the 'do we retain our consciousness, our essence, our self?' or do we fade into something different, or part of something else, or more, or less, or just sort of float around? It is hard to believe that we can just take a spirited form of our consciousness and 'exist' as our unique personality in another place.

Ah, but I'll stop now. Especially since my next line would tend to be something like, or perhaps we already are part of one existence, and not really seperate or unique at all, and that would lead into the possibility that we aren't really individual or unique or possible really, we exist only in thought, i.e. we are real because we think we are real, and the moment we no longer believe it, we cease to exist....

Yes, I agree, I should have stopped.
As you can see,

I'm quite adept at avoiding the topic.