11 years ago today I did something I have never regretted but often wondered if it were right. Mom had been in hospice for quite some time, several months, although the exact number eludes me since I was in Colorado when she first was bedridden. The day before, Andrea and I got legally married in a small ceremony consisting of Dad, Mom, Billy, Vicky, Andrea and I...Alan was there too I think. We did that because it became obvious Mom would not live to the announced date of July 28th and she really had wanted to see us get married.
By the time of the ceremony she was no longer conscious. Dad says he asked her if she knew what happened and she squeezed his hand in affirmation. Good enough for me. Be that as it may, nobody knew if she would last another hour, day, week, month...it was a tough time. I had a personal errand I had been planning to do for a while, so the next day I drove to Portland to do it. Poor choice, apparently, since when I got back Mom had died. A call had been placed to the funeral home and they were coming to get the body.
By the time they got there it was about 11 at night. We had a little family moment that will, for the time being, remain within the family because, you know, it should. Then the boys and I stayed up for several hours playing cards. I mean, what else are you going to do?
We knew it was coming. It was so hard watching her under the effects of the morphine, her body contracting in pain, her personal belief in her feminity gone to the ravages of a couple bouts with breast cancer, her hair gone to the chemotherapy, her strong personality shattered under years of devastating illnesses...I remember walking in one time near the end when she was crying and had to ask someone to dial some number...like Dial-a-Prayer or something like that...she was too weak physically to dial the phone herself, which I could deal with...but the real blow was that she was in a mental state to dial something like that. That shook me up.
But knowing it is coming, even being a little bit releived that the physical pain and anguish and deterioation are over, that is one thing...looking back 11 years later and wondering what you could or should have done different is another thing entirely.
The sad thing is I am completely at ease with how I handled it...but I feel like I shouldn't be. Every year around this time it is rough for me mentally because I am okay with it. It feels like I should be sorry I took a trip to Portland or that my brothers and I dealt with it by losing ourselves in a card game or that at her funeral I did not cry one tear, though 2 of my closest three friends had major breakdowns on my shoulder.
It makes me wonder if I am capable of having the emotions a person "should" have in situations like that...of feeling what "normal people" feel.
Then again, for may years...about 7...on either the 18th or 19th we had a combo dinner: sort of a celebration of the legal anniversary date combined with a memorial for Mom where her and my friends would go to Old Spagetthi Factory...more because it was what she enjoyed than anything I like...and it was always a good time for reflection and introspection. For many reasons it died about a year before when Andrea and I were careening towards our blessed event. And for anyone who knows me, has there ever been a more blessed event than getting away from the adulterous individual and her dying baby lies? I think not. Sadly, in the by-splash, the memorial sort of stopped too. Just did not seem appropriate.
And that is what a lot of this rambling dissertation is about...figuring out what was and is appropriate and what will be. Then again, when a young mother with small children dies, does it really matter what is appropriate? I think the errand, which certainly did not have to be done that night, stands the test of time because in many ways it signifies something deeper: a realization that, instead of us all sitting around doing nothing waiting for her to die, we were maintaining the rythym of our lives, acknowledging that life would continue for us as individuals and as a family even after she went to meet her ultimate destiny. And sitting around doing nothing while waiting just wasn't and isn't our style. Do I regret not being there the moment she died? No, not really. I do regret that she had to go so young, and what that meant for the twins and Kenneth and Phillip. Sometimes that is still hard to deal with and the repercussions are still felt. And that is part of life...continuing to deal with things you never wanted to happen and making it work.
4 years ago
2 comments:
Hang in there, Senior Woodchuck. I'm sure she is happy for you now!
You know in a lot of ways I think it would be tougher for me to go through that now. (As opposed to then.) I didn't get all broken up about mom going. A psychiatrist would probably tell you that I was in denial or that I didn't know what death meant. Believe me, I knew when they wheeled the gurney with that black bag on it out the door that mom was gone. She wasn't coming back. We weren't going to be learning times-tables or geography from her anymore. We weren't going to be listening to her play the piano anymore. We weren't going to be laughing as she flailed the Nintendo controller around while playing Super Mario 3. Maybe those things didn't exactly pass through my mind, but the realization was definitely there. But you know what? Unlike a lot of people that say it, I actually KNEW, mom was in a better place. A place where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not brek in and steal. Where she could be happy without having to be on so much painkiller to keep her concious that it had almost the same effect. Mom went home. And someday I'll see her again. Because she left an example of how to live right.
Iknow this really isn't what your post was about, but this is where my thoughts took me. :P
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