This is the post I need to write

This is the post I need to write.  It’s not colourful and fun.  I don’t have morsels to share.   I just need to get these words out. I guess I need you, my dearest… my family… to know.  

There might be some lessons in it, and I think maybe some hope. But, I know it’s gonna be a bit tough to read.  I guess that’s a bit of a warning.  Proceed with caution, but please proceed.

Here goes.  

I have nightmares that mum is still alive and even in the dream I know it isn’t real, but I still wake up shaken.  

A few weeks ago, I was jokingly saying “help me” while Chris tickled me and I suddenly heard her voice crying out for help days and hours before she died.  I can’t jokingly say that anymore.

The last truly awake moment she had was when Paul and I were with her.  It was September 3rd 2019 at 11:30 am or so that Paul walked in and she said, “Paul, you’re here…” and then looked at me and back to him and proclaimed, “and so is God.”  He smiled and laughed and said, “yes He is!”  Then we decided to do a simple communion service.  She listened to what Paul said very intently and spoke the words.  The confession, the words of the Eucharist. The words of the Lord’s Prayer that she taught me when I was little.  She took communion and she smiled.  

She knew she was dying.  We all knew.    

Then lunch came, and her favourite at that… a peanut butter sandwich and a sliced banana.  She savoured a few bites.  We didn’t know it would be the last thing she’d ever eat.  She started choking a bit while eating, and had trouble breathing.  Her stats were low…. Her oxygen needs the highest they’d been.  100.  

She started calling out, “HELP ME” with an intensity I will never forget.  The nurses rushed in and gave her morphine, and she settled and slept again… and then Paul and I sat there.  There were words, I am sure. Eventually he left that day… and I continued to sit.  I sat all day with her… watching her hunched over as she fought to breathe.

I sometimes got up and walked around her room.  I went to the washroom occasionally. I smiled at the nurses and care takers who’d been giving her the oxygen and everything else she’d needed (including friendship and laughter) for the previous seven weeks.  I phoned and talked to friends.  I invited people to come and see her for the last time.  I texted my brother.  He was on his way.  

I held her hand some.  I wanted so much for her to wake up, but I didn’t want her to have to go through the suffering of waking up again.

I looked out the window and watched cars driving by.  Chris brought me meals.  And hugs.  I looked at pictures.  Friends visited.  Teresa, Audrey, Brooke, Danny… we hugged, we cried… they said goodbye to a woman who had lived so very fully… so well… so hard… so tender.  They loved her as I did.

She never really woke up again after that time with Paul.  She would come out of her morphine induced rest and cry out for help, try to get up out of bed, and the nurses would rush in.  We discussed not letting her wake up again by continuing to give her high dosages of morphine.  We were waiting for Peter to get here.  

The Sunday before she died, she and Dr. Lawson and I had a real talk.  She didn’t want to go on the Bi-pap machine. She was ready to see her brother Doug and her parents.  She sat me down and said, “Now, you’re not going to like this, but you need to listen.  I am going to die soon.  They’ve put in a catheter and they’re going to increase my morphine so I don’t suffer.”  I nodded and smiled.  I didn’t like it, that was true… but I knew she was right and I knew her decision was the best one.  I was going to be strong for her.  I was going to be with her till the end. She would not be alone.  She spoke with singular clarity.  She was not fierce, but she was sure.  She was not angry, but she was determined.  She was not afraid, and she wanted to console me.

“You are going to be okay.” She’d said.

Eventually I went home that day.  I got Faith-dog cuddles.  I played with Luna… the kitten my mum never met. She saw pictures of her and said she couldn’t wait to meet her, but that was all long before September 3rd.

I woke up again on September 4th.  I made my way to the hospital.  I took the elevator up. I washed my hands and smiled at the nurses and other staff.  I checked in with her nurse.  We all knew that it was the day.  We were just waiting for Peter.  

I got a coffee from Tim’s.  I sat on the little couch near the window in her room, next to her bed.  Next to her.  I held her hand.  I was determined she wouldn’t have to suffer waking up again.  In the afternoon, Chris came and sat with me.  We talked.  We held hands.  The nurses came and went.  The room got cleaned.  

I started packing her things.  Her sleep mask with cat eyes, her toiletry bag, her iPad… things she loved.

She did wake up again, and cried out again.  I hated every second of it, but I also savoured the moments I had with her.  It was a strange bittersweet emotion. I couldn’t take away her suffering, so I just told her I loved her over and over. Chris thinks he heard her say I love you too.  I am not sure.  It was painful – for her and for me… for everyone in the room.  

And the nurses and doctors, overall (one exception mum nicknamed Dr. Gloom) were amazing.  Dr. Lawson was kind, warm, and real with us.  He told us that there is a new perspective in medicine that not just the person in the hospital bed is the patient, but the whole family.  So, he was our doctor too.  I was so grateful for all they did to try to save her.  I was so grateful that she made the choice she wanted.  I was so sad to be losing her.

She had talked a lot about making it to my wedding.  She had been determined.  It didn’t happen.  I mean, she was there in Peter and me… and Linnéa and Karmen and Freija… she was there in a photo locket tribute I carried on my bouquet.  She was there in the spirit of three tattoos, all in her honour that all have POL (her mantra, “Part of living”) in them.  She was there in the stories, the memories, but SHE was not there.  I am okay with that.  I didn’t know that I would be.  I was.  Thankfully.

So, September 4th.  Peter and Kate were hurrying – driving from Seattle to Port Angeles, taking the ferry… finally arriving on the in the evening.

Paul came again.  He sat with Chris and me.  He gave us words of comfort.  Chris went to walk Faith and feed the pets.  Peter and Kate arrived.  It was dark.  We planned with the nurses how things would go.  I hugged my dear brother and gave him some time alone with her.  Chris went and got us Wendy’s.  Mum would have loved a frosty.  We munched and even joked a bit.  It was a momentary reprieve from the sadness.  She would have loved being with us, fully herself, for those moments… She’d have been the one joking around, singing, dancing (how only she could) and lifting all our spirits while simultaneously creating slight cringing in her kids.  She was a character.

I walked around outside a bit.  I felt everything and I was numb simultaneously.

We gathered together and the nurse started administering more morphine.  A little bit later she turned off mum’s oxygen.  We sat and held her hands and held each other.  We sang hymns, Paul read scripture.  We laughed and we cried.  And she started to fade.  The increased morphine made her breathing slow down.  She wasn’t gasping for air.  She wasn’t suffering.  She was asleep though… we couldn’t look into her eyes and tell her we loved her.  

We loved her so much.  We love her so much.

At 11:11 pm, a time which I’ve always thought was magical, she stopped breathing. Apparently, she opened her eyes.  I didn’t notice that.  Kate and Paul said she looked at Peter and I.  I didn’t notice that.  

“Well done, good and faithful servant.” Paul said.  We cried.  We hugged.  We felt it all. It was visceral.

And in that moment, my world changed.  I mean, it had been changing slowly as she declined… but suddenly I was not her child anymore. I mean, I will always be her child, but somehow I was more on my own.  I felt the shift of generations changing.  I became the matriarch of our little family.  No matter how old I am, she will always be with me.  

Strangely, I’m grateful she died September 4, 2019 rather than May 4, 2020. I’m grateful we could surround her in her last days and not have to wear masks. I’m grateful she wasn’t here to experience this pandemic.

Everywhere I ever go, she will be there, too. I will see the world for her too. She not only gave me life in a literal way, she has – through her life and death inspired me to live.

I love you mum. Happy Mother’s Day.