Her Children Rise Up and Call Her Blessed.


I had a post all lined out last night, lamenting about my poor mother, who a week ago we placed in hospice. It has been a terrible, draining, long week. End-stage cirrhosis with hepatorenal syndrome, is what happened; once the hepatorenal aspect starts and is diagnosed, the mean prognosis is two weeks, usually less. She was in a lovely facility with a God-sent staff, a group of loving, compassionate people. I can't speak highly enough of the staff at Banner Gardens Hospice House. I pray that God blesses these loving servants of the afflicted.

This whole week--Sunday to Sunday--was an exhausting blur.

I was there every day. While she was still lucid, she was rather feisty, but I now understand that to be a product of her incredible resolve to live. It wasn't until she was taken off of her medications and was strictly on what are called "comfort medications" that any of us had any concept of how much pain she'd been concealing from us. When the nurses have to medicate anyone four times in a night, and the attending nurse marveling that it's "a lot," it revealed how much pain she was in, pain she never let us see. And only then had we realized that she had been living in physical hell.

Mom had been sedated for the last four days. Due to the toxins in her body, it made her restless and combative, on top of confused. It was to prevent her from hurting herself against the railings with her gossamer skin, or falling. Her last semi-lucid day was Wednesday (as she had been slightly doped), she had called Dad to say that if he didn't come and take her home, she was going to walk every step.

She knew where she was and why, but her coping mechanism was to insist that this was just a setback; she walked up and down the hall on Tuesday, determined to prove she was coming home. That took so much out of her, but that was Mom. She also said some harsh things that I know that I cannot take personally--especially now that we know just how much pain she was in. I also know, thanks to Susan, why this was: not only did she want to live, she didn't want to leave Dad, leave me, leave her life. She wasn't done yet, still so much to do.

This morning, I was wide awake at six, showered and dressed as I was to serve at Mass at 12:30. I headed out on the long drive to east Mesa. I got there at 7:30 AM.

It is said that the auditory functions are the last to go, and so I talked to Mom.

She looked so battered, frail and wasted, struggling for each shallow breath, the horrendous bruises that came with the IVs and blood draws stark against her skin.

I didn't weep, but my tears dripped on her bedlinens. I said that I'm sorry, it wasn't supposed to be this way; you were supposed to live to 100; I know that you still want to do things. But... Mama... it's over. It's time.

And it's OK for you to go. There are so many waiting joyfully for you, I said, and said their names: Aunt Janet and Uncle John, Uncle Bill, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Ross, my sisters Roberta and Margaret, her mother, and the beloved father she never got over losing when she was 12.

Mama, I said, of course I don't want you to go, none of us do, but it's time--you're body is giving out on you, there's too much pain, it's OK, I love you. Go to where there's no more piles of medications, no more ascites drains, no more transfusions; no more having to hide the horrendous pain.

We all love you, we understand, it's OK to go. I love you, Mama.

Then I read from the red prayer book with the Offices in it; parts of the Office of the Dead; and the morning prayers for the Fourth Sunday of Lent.

As I stroked her head before I left, it struck me how much of her hair is still dark at the age of 69. Still thick, still lovely, with the distinctive greying streaks. She had aged gracefully, and still retained much of her good looks even in the ravages of the last three years.

Mama, I said, thank you for being *my* mother. I love you, Mom.

And I kissed her forehead, saying goodbye.

I wept stormily as I drove to Starbucks. Oh, Mama...
I begged my late beloved godmother--Nancy, who had come to me in spirit as I had keened at her passing to let me know she was OK--to please go to Mom, please tell her there's nothing to be afraid of, tell her from where you are that it's OK.

I wandered from place to place, lost like the orphan I knew I was to become too soon. While I love my father, my mother was my friend. I was blessed in that regard. So in a way, when she goes, I will be alone. Who can I wander through the Home Depot garden department aimlessly with? Who will I concoct parties with, discuss recipes with? Who will I be able to ask advice from?

Without Mama, who's going to love me? What's going to become of me when I don't have you to love me?

I got to Church an hour too early. I signed in on the EMHC board, tried to go through the gift shop, and couldn't take the people. Kurt at the office let me in to go through the Franciscan library that Fr Hoorman keeps. I was trying to keep my brain busy.

Deacon Phil poked his head in and he sat with me as he waited for his appointment to show. He and his wife know what's been happening, and earlier this week I had sent them an email with a heartfelt cry, my soul disturbed. He asked me, "Are you ready to let her go?" I replied yeah, but I don't want her to go... but that she's fought the fight and it's OK.

"Did you tell her that?"

A strange kind of relief washed over me as I said yes, I have, and I recounted my half-hour with Mom this morning. I fought tears as I sketched for him the hell of this past week, and it felt good to say something to someone who isn't intimately involved with the drama.

When his appointment showed up, I wandered to the shrine of St Anthony within the Church proper, Anthony, my best friend in recent months. I implored him to help, to help Mom understand it's OK to go, help this lost soul. But it was at the shrine to Our Lady of Perpetual Help that I wept. Oh, Blessed Mother... please let her know it's OK, and please intercede with your beloved Son for her faults, for His forgiveness--dear God, Mom's done her Purgatory in this living hell; please release her and hold her in Your loving arms...

By the time Mass started I was a wreck. TJ met me there, and I cried silently on his shoulder. I could not keep the tears back, even as I offered His Body. All I could do is pray for Mom's release. At my meeting with Father Jeff my brain was wiped. So much for picking music.

I went home for awhile, and then went to Dad's to start on the draft of her obit. God, save me: I have dreaded this task.

Today at 4:15 PM, the phone call came, and there was the sad but not unexpected news: she passed at about 4:10. Mama is now seeing the face of God. I have no reason to doubt otherwise. Kind, maternal, generous Mama...

Dad and the boys went ahead as TJ picked me up. She was on the bed, arms crossed, her ravaged face peaceful. "Oh, Mama... " and as I looked at her, thinking of arrangements, "nobody needs to see you this way, they don't need to remember you this way..." Daddy held me for awhile as I cried tiredly. Even poor TJ wept. "I love your mother," he said on the way home.

It's not every woman whose husbands characterize them as "a great lady." And it's the rare woman whose sons-in-law love her as their own mother. And I love my mother... God, I'm going to miss her.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord.
And let perpetual light shine upon her.
May she rest in peace, Amen.
May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace, Amen.