cross-posted at orange
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The day of. Going home. She’s there when I walk in, the oven door open. She’s bent over the big ball of a turkey there.
I have chocolate covered strawberries and think she will love this surprise. But she isn’t in the mood for them. Are you alright, I ask her. Suddenly, I take a good look. She looks like she’s lathered herself in stuff that makes you tan. But it doesn’t look quite right.
She tells me that she’s had some kind of strange flu for the last few days. Or maybe it was food poisoning. She’s not sure. She went to the doctor. He said it was the flu. We have Thanksgiving, but she’s tired and not herself.
Before I leave the next morning, we spend some time alone over a cup of coffee. Just chatting. Mother and daughter. When I leave, I grab her. Not just hug her. But grab her and hold her. Then I leave.
I call when I get home and she says she’ll go back to the doctor. Okay. That makes me feel better.
I take Monday off. Get up and make coffee, put on music. Starting to enjoy the morning. Coffee done, so I call my mother to have a morning coffee chat. She picks up the phone and says she’s gotta go… my sister and the baby are waiting for her. They’re going to the mall. She hangs up and I don’t even know why, but my hand reaches out. She’s gone. I can’t explain my unease.
I start to notice the strangest pain on the left side of my neck. Like I pulled something. I don’t know where this is coming from. Then the phone rings. I don’t answer it because I figure it’s work and they might ask me for something or to come in. I’m not going into work today. The phone rings all day. I finally pick it up at around 2 ish, figuring it’s too late to go to work.
It was my stepmother. Your mother had a heart attack. Bam. She’s in a coma. Crack. They didn’t have my husband’s work number. I call him. He comes home. I get in the car. We drive the two hours. Silent. It was safe there in that car because as far as I knew, my mother was alive and awake from her coma. I really expected that. When I got there.
She never woke up. And died the following Sunday. Funniest thing was walking into the hospital and there were signs every where: KNOW THE SIGNS OF A PERSON HAVING A HEART ATTACK. Yeah. I guess. If you’re a man. They know the signs.
Alot happened between my seeing her on a respirator that very first moment I walked into the hospital and not being able to see her body after she died.
But is all comes back to love. I’m thankful for that. The simple act of her rubbing my forehead and liking the little bit of roughness on the back of her fingers. I’m thankful for having somebody I could love like I love her… uncomplicated, there, free, full. I’m thankful for her laughter and her shyness and her strength. I’m thankful for the ways in which she surprised me and humbled me. I’m thankful to have somebody love me and I never ever needed instructions for my relationship with her.
Before we left for the memorial, we were sitting in my sister’s living room. She looked at my dad and said, you know dad, i always thought you’d go first. Our mouths fell open and my poor father didn’t know what to say. Then the laughter started and we all reached for each other cause it’s true… laughter can so easily turn to tears.
I love you mommy. I miss you. And for christ’s sake, give me a call, would ya? I really need to talk to you.
love… pf8
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be thankful you have the power to believe the world can be better…
almost the same way, except she was gone in hours, long before I could get there. That was almost three years ago. I still think about her every day, and even if it does make me cry, I don’t want to forget. A great big hug to you, and thanks so much for this beautiful piece.
(Beautiful essay, pf8. You and your mom were very lucky to have each other!)
Back in the 70’s, my older sister, Liza, was diagnosed with Hodgkins Disease. She was a junior in high school then and in the hospital for an entire year, except I remember that she did get to come home briefly for Christmas, in between chemo and radiation.
Back then, they really didn’t know what the hell they were doing – at least where I live – and when they gave her the Cobalt treatments, they neglected to shield her heart from the radiation.
So there was good news and bad: The good news was she beat the Hodgkins disease, the bad news was that she now had congenital heart failure. They performed several open-heart surgeries on her, one to remove her pericardium because the inflamation was so bad. They also removed her spleen. Liza made it through all of that, somehow. She was really tough. Frail but tough.
She went on to college and graduated from William and Mary with honors, with a Masters degree in French. (She loved France!) She got married and moved away to upstate New York. She always had health problems though. We were just used to it.
Then I got sick. I was doing chemo too and it’s a long story but they didn’t think I’d make it. (I obviously beat the odds) I’m 6’2″ and I’d dropped down to around 135 lbs. in the late fall of 1999. I was home, in bed, after having been up all night puking my guts out. Liza was in the hospital because she’d had difficulty breathing but hell, Liza was always in the hospital.
My phone rang and it was her. We talked for a while about nothing in particular but something wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it but she just didn’t sound quite right. I told her I loved her and hung up.
It kept bugging the hell out of me until I couldn’t stand it. Without telling her, I called the airline and booked a flight to Syracuse. I snarfed down a handful of pain meds and hit the road, then the air. I got there a few hours later and rented a car and drove to the hospital. I knew her room number – I figured I’d surprise her.
When I got off the elevator, a lady hurried past me, crying hysterically. I remember thinking that wasn’t good. I followed the room numbers ’til I got to my sister’s room.
She was still in bed, alone now, a ventilator crammed down her throat where they’d tried to resuscitate her but couldn’t. Her head was cocked to one side at a weird angle.
She’d died about 5 minutes before I got there. The woman I’d run into on the elevator was another teacher at the high school where Liza taught French and had arrived a few moments before I did just to pay her a visit. Like me.
It really sucks that I never got to tell her goodbye.
my eyes are full of tears….
that is beautiful…..
is not life truly poignant…..
I’m so sorry you’ve lost your mommy too.
Later I’ll come back & tell my tale.
kisshugs
Hugs to everyone on this thread who has been on this path… I am with you.
We’re told to take statins and Tums for our heart, when these drugs and too much calcium may kill us. What we need may be niacin and magnesium.
Magnesium may be the most neglected and vital element we can use to save yourself from an untimely heart attack – and other health problems.
http://www.mgwater.com/
http://doctoryourself.com