2 posts tagged “mourning”
Mom fell victim to a secondary infection that shut down her lungs and heart. My sister was with her during Mom's last few moments, exactly a day before I was supposed to be there. Mom died exactly two weeks after lapsing into a coma. She was in-urned a week after that. I was fortunate enough to place her ashes into the vault next to my Father's.
The past is gone. Only shreds of it remain with my siblings. My fond memories and childhood have been ripped from this plane and now are black and white, archival records of time long ago that can never, ever be relished in again without melancholy.
For those of you with living parents: Call them today for no other reason than to hear them. Visit them if possible. Pour through old photos with them and have the descriptions of each written on the back. Treat them extra kindly as their mortal coil may be sloughed all too soon.
My Mom's was.
Now I'm an orphan. Annie made it seem all so much more glamorous.
My Mother died Friday. Not all at once, mind you, which is funny saying "mind." See, my Mother's heart stopped. Just stopped. No attack, no infarction: It just stopped. Something about potassium levels being low and all, but the end result was that she had no fresh oxygen to her brain for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes. She lapsed into a coma.
I didn't find out until Sunday. I was 4 hours North of my hometown closer to Canada than my own bed when I got the call. Within hours, I was here in Florida. She is as expected, listless, unresponsive to all but the most basic request: Blink. Even that seems autonomic. So here she is, my Mother, lying in a bed unable to express her thoughts or feelings. We know from the EEG that there's something going on in her head. We know it's working, but some swelling is keeping her from telling us that. Some part of her head isn't right. She has a living will, and that will states that if she remains this way with no hope of recovery, then yank all the tubes and let her go completely. She never wanted to be a child of twilight and half-lived existence. She wanted to suck the marrow of the bones of life unapologetically, to which she did. But now her life is in the balance. And I'm pulling her towards the living, but never keeping an eye off of what she wants too. Fortunately that choice, selfless or selfish, is not mine. It's my elder brother, the statesman of the family since my Father's passing 2 1/2 years ago.
Even so, I fear she's already died in mind, her body unwilling to slip into the endless night. I hope I'm wrong, but I must prepare for the worst. I must be ready to be an orphan and lose my last connection to where I'm from. My siblings were always mentors, their advanced ages making it nigh on impossible to seek any form of solace in them. My wife has been tarried by matters beyond her control. I stand alone. But I still have Mom, or at least the mortal coil being sustained by machines and the will of others, for the time being. But how do you seek comfort from someone when you're mourning their loss. A modern paradox created by a pair of Docs.
Those of you who followed me from unadvertised links in my signature applied elsewhere: You know who cares about me and my life. Please tell all you know that Thomas is the one needing support. Pray if that's your thing, send vibes my way too. "It's all good," as the kids say. I just need some power, and I think it'd be impossible to leave any to spare.
But all of you: Turn to your loved ones tonight. Call them all or hug them if you can. Life is a stage, and the players parts are over far too soon and out of our control. Don't let them leave without letting them know that they played well.
They played well.
