letting go – draft 7 · ! 1!!!!!the!second!anniversary!!...
TRANSCRIPT
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The second anniversary
It was an unusually refreshing August day. The feel of spring was in the air;
odd given autumn lay just around the corner. This time of the year when
temperatures regularly stifle in the hundreds and the haze of distant wildfires settle
into our valley, the air this day had been scrubbed clean and fresh. Brilliant
billowing puffs dot the interminable blue sky, the cool breeze slowly pushing them
about high above our heads. This was the kind of day that draws you outside to
marvel in its beauty, but this day was not to be spent outside; this would become the
day we lost our way.
I was at the airport waiting to gather my aunt and uncle when the call came
through. We thought this week would be spent reminiscing with moments of
constrained laughter over happier times while gently mourning the quickly
approaching end to a life we so cherished. Each time I walk through the airport now
my eyes wander to the spot I became paralyzed and unable to rise after hearing the
words “Gather your family, it won’t be long.” It would be far too dramatic and
untruthful to say I had fallen to my knees upon hearing the news. No, I was simply
kneeling down riffling frantically through my purse where my phone lay hidden
before the call was lost. There was shrill urgency behind each ring in those days,
dreading the call that had finally come. In the span of one short sentence my world
began to complete its tilt. I believe I uttered something about being at the airport
retrieving family members and we would arrive shortly. Panic sets in; my greatest
fear of late had been she would die alone. Could the end come so quickly? What if no
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one reached her in time? How could the impending end be so close and I feel so ill
prepared?
I called the older of my brothers, the one who seems to handle stress as
easily as a fish swims through water. I asked him to call our younger brother and
break the news; I knew I would lose all composure had I been the one to pass on the
news that the end was here. I needed in that moment, amongst the bustle of
travelers, to somehow hold it together. Tears fell frequently and freely in those days
but I would do most anything to avoid them in public. The torrents held at bay until I
find my way to a space of solitude away from prying eyes. Why do we have this need
to shield the outside from our inner sorrow and mourn in private as if our tears and
emotions are shameful? Our youngest brother is hours away and mom had worried
most ardently about him and now I worry if he will get here in time to say goodbye.
Upon learning cancer had returned, this time in another location, another form,
another lifetime, her fear first voiced was for that of her youngest and how he would
take the news?
The telephone chain was set into motion as I waited crouched in my little ball
trying to figure out how to tell mom’s siblings that we needed to move quickly. How
do I tell them this will not be the visit anticipated? My panic grows. What about a
priest? Mom needs the last rights, mom would want this sacrament, is she of the
right mind to ask, is she even conscious, does she know the end is near? I knew
nothing; I had asked nothing, I was too stunned to think of asking anything. It is
amazing how the brain can momentarily shut down when overwhelmed to be
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replaced seconds later with thoughts ricocheting at warp speed around your brain.
I have no idea what the church’s phone number is; I am too frantic to figure out how
to dial directory assistance. My mental rolodex flips through friends I could call for
assistance but those calls would all require an explanation, an opportunity for the
waterworks to spring forth and I’m not ready for this. In the end it seemed simplest
to just hit redial. I call back the person that had made this grim prediction, barraging
the hapless receptionist with demands that a priest be summoned at once.
I spot my aunt coming down the hall alongside her brother being pushed in a
wheelchair by an attendant. I am finally able to pull myself into an upright position.
My aunt, for whom my middle name was plucked takes one look at my face and
knows all is not well. I explain the call I had just received and that we must go
straight to the nursing home.
A few days prior to her brother and sister’s arrival mom had been moved out
of the cavernous sterile room devoid of warmth or sense of home she had been
sharing to an equally large private room complete with a sitting area to
accommodate those coming by to bid farewell. Is this the room where they send you
to die? In all the months I had spent walking those halls how had I never noticed this
room? Is the door perennially shut to the outside shielding those grieving on the
other side of the door?
Mom hadn’t wanted to leave her last friend and roommate. They had become
accustomed to looking out for each other in the middle of the night when the nurses
where scarce and the pain fierce. Taking turns ringing their buzzers in hopes
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someone would show up to assist the other. I can still hear the fervent morning
reports; “Your mother suffered so last night and we rang and rang and it took so long
for help to arrive.” Now mom lay alone at night in a slender single bed in this place
she disliked in the body that had failed her so.
Nobody was deceived into believing the end wasn’t approaching; we just
didn’t think it would arrive this quickly. We thought at worst we had weeks, maybe
we would be blessed with a month or two, but not mere hours. I think mostly we
tried not to think about it; we certainly had not been unable to discuss the
impending end. We had hoped she could have been granted even a short respite free
from the pain that had engulfed her the past 6 months. Surgery just weeks earlier
had promised relief yet failed to deliver. I had thought of bringing her home for the
end and hiring nurses to assist in her care. She had said, as many do well before the
actual possibility arises, that the last place they ever wanted to end up was a nursing
home. “Put me out of my misery before I end up in one of those places” the healthy
muse. I am sorry mom, I am sorry I couldn’t rescue you from this place, I am sorry
there was no more time left to bring you home.
We arrived to find the oldest brother at mom’s side with evidence of recent
tears upon his face. Thank God he arrived so quickly and she was not alone. With
her siblings in tow we approach and in her typical fashion she apologizes for
bringing us together like this. Her voice is but a mere whisper as her breath rattles
with effort. Did she realize the evening before when I had visited that the end was so
near? I think she did, I wish I had. I regret not spending that last night by her side, I
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regret not spending every last moment together telling her how much I loved her,
how she shaped the woman I had become. How I long now to thank her for her
innumerable sacrifices, the unwavering faith and unconditional love she bestowed
on all of her children. I believe her gruff German nurse had been trying to gently tell
us the end was very near that last night as we embraced and cried. The regret over
words left unspoken lingers to this day.
Soon the room is crowded with gathered loved ones; all whom you she held
dear are here except for my son whom had said his goodbye just days earlier before
heading back to college. I couldn’t accompany him on that last visit, the final
farewell. I couldn’t watch my son say goodbye and walk away knowing he would
never again see the woman that had witnessed him come into the world. He didn’t
ask me to be there with him and I couldn’t offer. Perhaps he knew my heart would
break irreparably as a witness to this or maybe he felt as a young adult it was
something he had to do alone. Mom reveled in all her grandchildren, but the bond
between she and her first was immense. His first words where mama for grandma
and mommy for me, to the casual observer one in the same, to the three of us very
distinct. His first year spent in the embrace of two women that loved him without
reserve, the first grandbaby to capture her heart. Mom was his constant cheerleader
as well as relief pitcher when this single mom needed a moment to breath. The pride
in her children and grandchildren was palpable; the delight radiated as she held
each new grandchild for the first time is forever engraved in our hearts.
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My youngest brother and his newly minted fiancé make it in record time just
as the young Polish priest arrived to administer last rites. I have never witnessed
this Catholic ritual given to the dying. He explains he does it a bit differently, as done
in his country, with our active participation. Mom is propped up in bed, her eyes as
clear and blue as the sky outside as she hangs on every word the priest intones. It
was beautiful; she is placid, claiming her readiness to meet her maker. I didn’t know
what to do when it was over other than wipe my tears, hug, and thank the priest. We
found out later this young priest had visited mom numerous times during the
preceding months, none of us had known of his visits.
Mom wasn’t lucid much longer. I got my son on the phone and broke the
news to him. I held the phone to his grandmother’s ear and I can hear my son tell
her how greatly she is loved. She really isn’t speaking at this point and cannot reply
as I watch the tears well in her eyes. In silence she scans the room, holding each of
our faces in her loving gaze one last time before passing into a slumber where she
remained the rest of the afternoon and into the evening.
My son doesn’t understand the rapid descent, neither do we. Just a week
prior and with herculean effort we had sprung mom from this dreary place of wide
sterile hallways littered about with abandoned wheelchair bound patients hoping
someone will come along and push them to the destination which lays beyond their
strength. Mom had grown use to life in a wheelchair, transportation provided in
specially equipped vehicles and being moved as little as possible and then only by
trained orderlies. Muscles now atrophied and beyond use she had given up hope of
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rehabilitation; it was simply too much. Her pain dulled, yet never escaped. A
constant administration of pain meds: Fentanyl patches, Oxycontin and morphine
(not one at a time mind you but all three together) the likes of which would knock a
grown man to his butt, yet barely dented the pain her shrinking 100 pound body
felt. Her fear of falling or being moved incorrectly was so immense it took much
convincing and a group lesson with the physical therapist to coax her into leaving
the safe confines of the nursing home for an evening at home; our last supper.
We gathered around the table this last Sunday evening as we had so many
times before. Her children now grown and in homes of their own, with families of
their own, we would be summoned to gather around her table when she deemed we
had been apart too long. Her calls came with expected regularity, the gathering of
her flock along with our father, her ex-‐husband, to share a meal. We tried to make
this last meal festive. A glass of chardonnay was proffered after being denied for so
many months but now along with her appetite went her taste for wine. She took one
sip, shuddered, and asked us to take it away. I couldn’t tell you what I cooked for
dinner that last night, but I do remember the difficulty swallowing past the lumps
welling in my throat as the reality of the situation settles uncomfortably in. We
would excuse ourselves periodically when efforts to covertly wipe a tear fail and our
emotions needed taming in private. The last pictures where snapped as food sat
untouched on plates. At the head of the table she presided in tranquil repose, the
long absent smile now replaced the grimaces of pain we had become so accustomed
to as she beams at her assembled brood. We thought there would have at least one
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more dinner together when her brother and sister arrived days later; no one
realized this Sunday evening that the end looming so near.
I felt so alone this last day surrounded by my family as my son sits in the
solitude of his own sorrow a thousand miles away. In our own private grief mom
now appears at peace. She had spent her last six months in excruciating pain and
this last day finally dis-‐enslaved of pain and drug free; God’s final gift? The nurses
keep trying to administer morphine and while she is awake, she waves them off.
When she can no longer speak for herself, we tell them no. I think we are all wishing
for that last splendid moment, the one so often portrayed in the movies, when the
dying are suddenly clear headed and strongly willed, imparting their final words of
love and wisdom. If we were to be blessed with such a gift we didn’t want morphine
clouding the way, especially as she appeared to be pain free at last.
The atmosphere that day took on a carnival quality at times. Too many
people, too much noise, pizza was ordered. Some are loud and boisterous, begging
to be heard above the fray as the volume in the room increased. I think dying should
be peaceful, less chaotic. I silently pray when it’s my time it is not at all like this with
reverence lost and forgotten. My youngest brother reads bible passages to her
slumbering body in an attempt to bring decorum back as I spent that last day
watching her face. Eyes now forever closed to the world around her, sly smiles
crossing her face at moments as I wonder what is going on in her mind, where is
she? My eyes attempt to etch a permanent rendering of her features upon my mind.
As I watch her eyes flit back and forth behind closed lids I wonder if it is as they say
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and your life does flash before your eyes? The window had been opened to let in the
gentle and unexpectedly cool August breeze. In all the time she had been there I
don’t remember a window opened to catch the breeze and its feeble attempt to
chase away the smell of disease and death that lingers in the corners like dust motes
forever pushed about, never captured, and never disposed of.
It is evening now and someone turns on the TV, the Olympics are on. Please
turn this off, how could anyone pass on in this bedlam? This is too much and I leave
for a half an hour or so and hope order will overtake the room in my absence, but
again I panic, what if I’m not there and I quickly return. Mom appears oblivious to
the commotion but no one ever knows for sure do they? A friend stops by to visit
unaware of the vigil taking place and time marches forward. I don’t call her friends
to tell them what is happening, what would I say? “Do you want to come by and
watch her die?” She wouldn’t want this.
It has been a long day, especially for those that have traveled cross-‐county to
see her and most visitors have now drifted away for the evening. Her sister and
brother have been deposited at mom’s long empty house for a nights rest. My niece
wants to spend the night in the room with grandma like it is some odd sleepover.
There are vehement objections to her staying. We all realize how she loves her
grandmother, but this may not be something for her to see. We don’t know how it
will happen, will it be peaceful or painful, could it even go on for days? Her father
takes her away and we all wish someone else had, we wish he had instead remained
with us.
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My youngest brother sits on one side of the slim hospital bed with me on the
other in the quiet stillness of this cool August night. One single floor lamp in the
corner illuminates the now quiet room. Each of us is holding a cool soft hand that
had a lifetime ago soothed fevered brows, whisked away tears and wiped smudges
from grimy puerile faces. Always firmly clutching our little hands as we crossed
busy streets delivering us safely to the other side, now it was our turn to hold her
hand, ready to deliver her safely to the other side.
In no more than five minutes after the room had been cleared her breathing
visibly changed, less labored, slower, calmer. To this day I believe Mom was
protecting her granddaughter; she did not want her to be frightened or scarred by
the memory of her last breath, so she waited until she was gone. Above all else the
job she cherished most was that of mother and grandmother and part of that job
was protector. I am sorry her oldest son wasn’t with us; he should have been there,
just the three she had ushered into the world now escorting her out. I am envious of
the quiet time he had with her that last day before we all descended. I wish we all
had had a few minutes alone, bathed in our mothers love and presence that final day
to say our private goodbyes.
The youngest, the one mom had so fretted about was now the one that
appears so strong and resilient, gently telling her “We are ok, you can leave us now.”
He thanked her for the wonderful job she had done as a human and most
importantly to us as a mother. I am incapable of opening my mouth; I don’t trust
myself to speak. She takes a long breath and then nothing as we intently hold our
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own as we wait to see if another one comes and it does. Then one more single
breathe and she is gone. If I had been alone with her I am afraid I would have started
crying aloud the words reverberating in my head “Please don’t leave me, please
don’t leave me, I can’t do this without you!” I’m afraid I would have selfishly begged
her to not leave and perhaps she would have lingered longer. As much as I was
unprepared, she was ready and at 10:15 pm she gently left us, her beauty lost
forever to the world only to remain forever in our hearts.
She never awoke that last day; never spoke a final time as we had longed she
would. It has been two years since I’ve heard her voice. A video shot nearly a year to
the day prior to her death sits unwatched on the shelf. I have been unable to bring
myself to watch this and I have since learned most of the family is unable to watch it
as well. I thought perhaps tonight on the second anniversary of her passing I would
but I cannot. It feels safer to write. Grief still comes in waves, even with the passage
of years it often surprises. A forgotten memory brought unexpectedly to the surface
at the mere hint of remembrance and tears flow once again. Perhaps grief is simply
loves unwillingness to let go.
The void we feel at her passing is immediate and aching. What was less
apparent at the onset was the drift that would occur with the loss of our anchor. The
person that kept us afloat and intact was now gone. Every family must have that one
person, the glue that holds the rest together. It may not always be the mother but I
suspect in most families it is. We must now learn to live untethered and free floating.
There are no more Sunday family dinners; months will pass without a single word
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spoken between family members. We still care for each other of course; we still love
each other, and the rare occasions spent together now are no longer mired in
sadness, but instead laced with the formation of new memories and laughter as we
navigate our way in this new world of ours without our anchor.
It is said time heals but I believe time dulls, finally affording us the
opportunity to reflect with gratitude a time of happier memories instead of dwelling
on the loss. If time is not the mechanic of healing then perhaps it is the memory of
love that finally pulls us through our sorrow. Loss of a loved one is the common
thread that binds all of us together. Each of us will lose someone we hold dear and
many will feel the pain of multiple losses. We each reflect upon loss differently and
cope in a different manner, but it is our shared experience of grief that may set us
apart from all other creatures and ultimately I hope allows us to live with more
compassion for each other. It often helps me in the darkest recesses of grief to know
I am not the only person to have ever gone through this.
Sitting upon my desk as I write, is the last picture taken at that last Sunday
dinner of the two people that have meant the world to me, my son the gymnast and
his cheerleader grandmother, together saluting the world one last time. It is now my
time to salute you mom and in remembering her I am forever reminded to love each
person that touches my life. Loss amplifies love, and the greatest gift we can offer
another is our capacity to love.
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