One Last Time

 

Mom Summer 2023
age 91

My Mom has been in home hospice since Saturday.  She had been in the hospital for a week while they tried to figure out why she had suddenly started choking and then aspirating while attempting to swallow.  They never figured it out definitively other than to suspect it was neurological; possibly a mini stroke that went unnoticed or another degenerative condition.  She's almost 93 now and has been in a slow decline since her fall last Thanksgiving week when her bones announced they would no longer bear her weight and her foot nearly broke off her ankle.  She has been completely bedridden ever since.

They had to give up trying to help her last Wednesday because everything they tried to treat one condition created or worsened another.  The aspirating created pneumonia, then she went into a-fib because lack of nutrition caused potassium deficiency but she couldn't tolerate the potassium infusion.  Then her oxygen levels started dropping.  All the testing was also hard on her.  So my sister and the doctors in consultation with Mom decided it was time to switch to palliative care and home hospice.

Yesterday she was pressing her lips together to refuse all but ice chips.  Today she became nearly completely unresponsive and her breathing sounded like gurgles.  Half an hour ago I got a text from my sister that her breathing has started going into long pauses.  I am beside myself with sadness and feeling more than usually trapped by being a shut-in separated from her by a river and maybe two miles by bird flight but at least six by car.

Then it crossed my mind that what I needed to do was write.  But journaling was not going to cut it.  I remembered how I used to be able to take moments like this to my blog as easy as breathing.  So I decided to repost the Mother's Day Musing poem one last time under whatever musing I need to do about what is happening right now.  At first I balked thinking 'Don't make this about you.'  Yet even tho it is about her it is also about our Mother/Daughter relationship and thus about my grief.

I got to visit her in the hospital last Thursday when she was still alert part of the time.  She's been aphasiac since her stroke in 2008 but she had a few words and phrases.  For the last couple years she seems to have enjoyed listening to me talk about my crochet.  We bonded around crochet because she taught me.  Twice. The first time my senior year of high school when I made two afghans for Home Ec.  But I didn't really take to it then.  The second time was in 2009 about six months after her stroke when she didn't yet have much of her language back.

When my Dad died in 2005 I'd found a crocheted bookmark in one of his books and I asked Mom if she'd made it.  But she said no and thought it had probably been Grandma Thelma.  She told me I could have it.  I asked if she could teach me to make one.  She said yes.  But I was packing to go back home to the Rogue Valley Oregon so we promised we would on the next visit.  But we had not done it yet before her stroke.  She still had nearly zero words tho.  So she took the hook and thread and had me watch her make the chain and put the first stitch in and then complete the row.  Each row was twelve double crochet creating a single shell stitch.  Then she took it out and handed it to me and watched me try.  And try and try.  She shook her head no if I wasn't doing it right and nodded when I finally did.

So I got to see her at her house again on Monday and she was still responsive enough to know I was there and managed to stay awake as I chattered on about my crochet WIPS.  Whenever I paused too long she would say 'Uh huh'  until I started up again.  I ran out of things to say about my current crochet and then hit on the Jimmy Carter memoirs I've been reading since January.  So many.  But it wasn't the memoirs I wanted to tell her about.  I asked if she remembered President Jimmy Carter and she said 'Yes!'  very emphatic and I swear there was an actual smile in her tone.  So I told her he had just had his 100th birthday October 1st and had been in home hospice for over a year. She said several times, 'Oh My!  Oh My!'  Then I said 'He was a Sunday school teacher before he ran for office.  And she said, 'Yes!'  In a way I knew she was all there and remembering the Carter years clearly.

That was probably my last true conversation with my Mama.  Tuesday she barely acknowledged she understood I was there and could not stay awake.  There were no 'Uh huh' only 'Mmm hmmm'

Today I asked my sister not to try to get a response.  Forcing her to consciousness meant forcing her to suffer the pain.  I just wanted to sit with her and the family that was there.  To give and receive support form each other.

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At just after 9:30pm, half an hour after the message that her breathing had gone into long pauses, I got the message that she is gone.  And that my brother and his wife are on the way from Portland.  My sister asked if I'd like to come sit with them and I said yes.  So now I need to get ready to go.  So I can't take time to edit this now.  Maybe I will later tonight when I get back home and add a postscript while I'm at it.

Meanwhile enjoy my Mother's Day poem photo essay honoring Mom.  It's a repost from way back.

A Mother's Day Musing

by Joy Renee

Have you ever noticed,
while flipping the pages
in a family photo album,
how often
mothers seem to not be
in the picture?

Even though we all know,
if we consider for just
one moment,
that every breath

every bite

every step

and every bright
smile

depends on her
involvement.


Maybe it's because
she was the one
taking the picture
or so busy making
stuff happen
or just
making stuff--
from matching outfits

to fully outfitted
snowmen


from flapper dresses

to wedding dresses


from birthday cakes


to wedding cakes;

picnics,

stage props,

rag curls,

curly tops,

smart bow ties

and...

matching eyes.

There needs to be,
don't you agree,
more than one day
each year when
the one who makes
it all happen,
who makes home
feel like home,
who frames all the pictures
of our earliest
memories,
is given her rightful
place
right in the middle
of the picture?