A MOTHER OF SUBSTANCE: A Legacy of Courage

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So that I could always be reached, the nursing home would call my cell phone. They would have no idea where I was, and once called me from the nursing home when I was with my mother at the nursing home. She had a small private room that I redecorated on a regular basis so she wouldn’t get bored with her immediate surroundings. I must say, that nursing homes tend get a bad rap. This wasn’t Xanadu, but it was homey and my mother, over time felt at home there. This is when it all started to come together for me. My early experiences of believing that God just can’t wait for you to screw up so He can smite you and that you “white-knuckle” your way around here and make sure you get to Heaven, etc. was not at all the way my mother utilized her faith. Her faith is what made her life here the best she could make it. Going to Heaven was a bonus. I long ago rendered the notion of my early religious teachings, but my mother showed me how to properly embrace my spirituality. We choose to either be miserable, or we can choose to look beyond ourselves and pull from another place of serenity. What you believe is your reality. Toward the end of my mom’s life, she became more at peace with regard to the eternal destination of her mother’s soul. She was never more aware that her God’s mercy trumped His judgment.

In the spring of 2009, Mother received a diagnosis she most assuredly had for a number of years, Congestive Heart Failure or CHF. She had been once again correct about her heart. The doctors surely knew, but refused to tell her. They never did. As I had promised her, if I knew something, she would be told. Upon receiving the information, she was calm, resolved, and decided, after talking with her doctor, that she wanted to call in hospice. It was comforting that her hospice nurse was [long ago] a young girl from church who my mom had mentored for God. This “young girl” from long ago was now a wife and mother, and her life as a hospice nurse was her ministry. She was delighted to “give back” to my mother. Fate can be a wonderful thing. With this additional care, Mom seemed to be getting better. During one of my visits on a spring day as we chatted about all sorts of things it was decided I would begin the search for just the right outfit for her burial. I know it sounds morbid, but it really wasn’t, I shopped for her regularly and it was for the [hopefully] somewhat distant future. It was just to have, to hang in the closet and that “business” would be out of the way.

My husband and I went to Jackson Hole, WY to a conference for the July 4th weekend, 2009. When we arrived home the week after the 4th, instead of getting busy with all the new contacts I had made, I felt compelled to go shopping for my mother. I spent two days shopping for burial outfits for her to choose from, and for new clothing for her to wear in the fall. As I checked in my hotel room [no internet service at my father’s + he’s old and keeps the house at 85 degrees year round], I spoke with my mom for approximately 20 minutes. She had finished dinner, and was about to get into her pajamas. We decided that we would tackle the huge arm-loads of clothes in the morning. The last thing she said before hanging up was “get a good night’s sleep tonight, sweetheart, I love you.” My response, “I love you too Mom.”

The next morning at 6:25 AM my cell phone rang. It was my mother’s nurse. She said, “Miss Joy, your Mom is unresponsive, we are trying to resuscitate her, the ambulance is on the way to take her to the hospital.” I asked her, “has my mom passed away?” She just repeated what she had just told me. I told her that I was in town and would be there right away. As I was putting on clothing, I went into “drill” mode; although I had a feeling it wasn’t a drill. I called my aunt, she told me she would get my father, and my uncle would meet me at the hospital. My next call was to my husband, who was over 2 hours away. As I sped to the hospital, I told him that this call felt different than any previous calls. I had a really bad feeling about this one. He agreed. He was on his way. I got to the hospital before the ambulance, although the nursing home is a mere 5 minute walk from the ER doors. My uncle was right behind me. As I started to leave to go to the nursing home, the ER nurse said, “Honey, why don’t you just wait here?” I walked out of the ER door and the ambulance was coming down the hill toward the hospital. I stayed in the driveway, and as they opened the back doors of the ambulance, I noticed the look on the faces of the EMT and the hospice nurse. My heart sank.

My aunt had told my father that my mom wasn’t doing well and was being taken to the hospital. She told him she would drive. When they told us “we did all we could…” I felt my knees weaken; I walked over to my father who seemed dazed and confused, took his hand and told him that Mother was gone. He turned pale and sat down. A nurse checked his blood pressure. I felt dazed myself. I held back my tears, stood up as straight as I could and asked if I could see her. Her brother went with me, my father stayed in the chair, mostly staring at the floor. As I walked in and saw my mother, pale, but not yet cold, there was something that struck me in a metaphoric sense. In the years, since her first major stroke, [in two weeks would have been 12 years] her right arm had drawn up and had begun to atrophy. Now, I understand medically why what happened, happened – but it was cathartic for me that her arm was completely straight. As I rubbed her now relaxed, once again straight arm, I felt a sense of peace and well-being. My mother was no longer paralyzed, no longer crippled by her body that had failed her in so many ways. It was 7:05 AM on Thursday, July 16, 2009.

It never entered my mind that I would be the one to notify my brothers and sisters of our mother’s death. As I walked outside to make the calls, I felt numb. I called them in random order, and somehow held myself together to get the job done. Something else I got from my mother, either through DNA or by example, is how to get through a difficult situation and maintain my composure. After my brief conversations with my siblings, I walked back into the hospital where a nurse approached me with some paperwork to release her body, and to hand me a ring that was on my mother’s finger. It was a ring I had given her as a gift some years ago. My mother didn’t usually sleep with jewelry. Part of her evening ritual was removing all of her jewelry before going to bed. In the morning, she would decide what jewelry to wear that day. I have no idea why she was wearing that ring. I treasure it now.

We were told that at 3:30 on that morning Mom had asked for something for leg pain. She also asked to go to the bathroom. She then went back to bed; it is assumed that she then went to sleep and never woke up. If she had held on for another hour, I would have been arriving with the bundles of hanging bags of new clothes for her to look through and try on. I would have found her. She wouldn’t have wanted that.
What I didn’t know was that in the days preceding her passing, she had spoken with some of her nurses in a very candid way of how she knew she wasn’t going to be here much longer and how much she had appreciated their friendship and the care they had given her. What I also didn’t know was that the previous day, Mom had told my father where she had hidden money at their home. Information she had held tightly, and knew she would only share when she felt her time was very limited. Did she tell me the night before to get a good night’s sleep that Wednesday night because she sensed I would need it? She told me on a couple of occasions that she prayed that when her “time” was imminent that she would know. She didn’t want any unfinished business. It was now time for me to get on with my “duties” for the day. My father did not want to linger at the hospital and see the hearse take my mom away. My uncle took my father with him for a while, my aunt left, and I stayed. I couldn’t leave until my mother did. I waited for the hearse to arrive, watched as the kind man put my mother’s body in the vehicle- then watched them drive away.

I immediately made the short drive to my mother’s room at the nursing home. It was just as the emergency personnel left it. I maneuvered around the “crash cart” and all other items discarded on and around her bed, retrieved my mother’s purse, her checkbook, and a jewelry pouch. Then, I walked out, went back to my hotel room and while I waited for my husband to arrive from Birmingham; from the core of my being – I wept.

My father is 87 years old, lives alone and is doing pretty well, considering. I think he was glad to have the opportunity to “give back” to my mother as she approached the end of her life. I think with some regrets he may have from earlier in their marriage, he was able to be someone on whom she relied – and he came through for her. He was in a sense able to redeem himself. Redemption – something my mother could appreciate.

This will be my first Mother’s Day without my mother. I am so fortunate to have been her daughter. I miss her desperately, but I am at peace in the sense that my mother’s soul lives on – through her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren – and into the great beyond. I am now convinced that what you believe is your reality. It is yours to choose.

When people say to me, “I’m sorry you lost your mother” I have a sense of knowing that she is not lost – I believe I know where she is.