They drove away from my dorm in LaCrosse that September morning, and Mom cried the entire way home. Dad comforted her as best he could, but she was inconsolable. It felt as though her baby was going away forever.
We drove from the hospital in Madison this afternoon, and I cried the entire way home. Dad comforted me as best he could, but I was inconsolable, and he joined me in my tears. It feels as though my momma is going away forever.
An ambulance is bringing Mom home tomorrow morning. Hospice is bringing by supplies tonight...setting up a hospital bed. She wants to be at home. She's faded quickly this week. The pain is etched in her face. She struggles just to move her arm. The pain is making her cranky, a complete deviance from her normal demeanor. The shift in personality is perhaps the hardest for me.
But, as I left, I lightly brushed her arm, and said my goodbye. She opened those beautiful hazel eyes and smiled so sweetly...and I just wanted to cradle her and protect her from the world. I want to save her from the end, but ah...I'm meeting with the brick wall of my finite power.
"I think she needs to be told that it's ok to go," several have now lent a voice to the sentiment. Charlie and I have come close to mutual tears at our perceived role in this direction. We've never cried in front of one another. Mom's been declining quickly. I watched them apply Vaseline to her lips and swab the inside of her mouth with water yesterday afternoon. I watched her doze off in the middle of a sentence. I watched her wake up to dry heaves. She hasn't eaten anything in days.
Wednesday afternoon they ordered a CT Scan of her head, ruling out possibilities of brain tumor. It came back clean. So...apparently she's healthy as a horse? There's talk of maybe inserting a tube through her stomach, so they can flush the contents before she vomits. She no longer urinates.
People want to see her, visit with her...she doesn't want them there. She barely wants me there. She doesn't want me, or Charlie, to remember her like this. She tears up when I enter the room and turns her face the other direction for awhile. She hates it...the grief clogs the room and I claw the air for my next breath.
"Wait until I get better," she mumbles in almost-gibberish. She'll visit with all of her friends once she's better again, she promises. This isn't living. She doesn't have the strength to walk. She regurgitates ice chips. She's either in great pain or doped up on pain killers...and there doesn't seem to be a happy medium.
I have a prayer locket, compliments of Aunt Debbie, circa Christmas 2004, in honor of my mother's valiant fight against this disease. I scribbled on a scrap early this week, "Grant her peace," and tucked it inside. My prayers are on a deeper level now. I don't ask for specifics. I don't ask for favors that I'll ever see. I want a reckoning, a final judgement from the higher power. I just want it over, whatever end that may be.
I comprehend so little in all of this; I beg for wisdom.
Now, tell me, how do you invite someone to die when they're so determined to live?
