LOSING MOM - Part 18
The morning before Mom’s birthday I woke up around 5am and, rather than tossing and turning trying to get back to sleep, decided to just get up and head over to Hospice. Maybe I woke up early for a reason, I thought as I sipped a quick cup of coffee, staring out the window at the shadows in the pre-dawn light. Maybe Mom needs me.
I left Sal a note on the kitchen counter so she’d know where I’d gone, and slipped quietly out the apartment door, closing it carefully so not to wake her.
Although I’m not generally an early riser, I really do love to be up before everybody else. I love padding around the shadowy house in the early morning hush, watching as the sky lightens from dark gray to silver. I love walking outside to get the newspaper, the bird calls sharp and distinct in the quiet air.
I especially love driving in the early morning when the roads are all empty, the houses dark and silent as I pass by. It’s like having the world all to myself for a minute.
But that morning, as I hurried through the empty lobby and out to my car, everything around me felt a little unsettled. The dark sky seemed a bit ominous, the bird calls like warnings. Tree branches were bending and rattling in the gusty wind.
I felt nervous, like I was running late for something despite the early hour.
The front door was still locked when I got to Hospice and, not quite sure what to do, I stood there awkwardly for a moment before noticing an intercom on the brick wall a few feet away.
I pushed the button tentatively.
“Can I help you?” a staticky voice asked through the speaker.
“Um, yes. I’m here to see my mom? Kay B...? In Room 102?” A gust of wind pushed against my back and my voice seemed to spin away with it.
“Who?” came the crackly reply.
“Kay B...? In Room 102? I’m her daughter. Can you please let me in?”
“Please wait inside at the front desk,” the voice instructed, and with a loud click the buzzer sounded, so I quickly pulled the heavy door open, struggling with its weight even more than usual against the strong wind.
To be honest, I was a little put off by the curtness in the nurse’s voice. In the week that Mom had been there I hadn't encountered one person who had been anything but kind and patient.
Well, except maybe for the two ladies behind the counter in the cafeteria...they were actually a bit grumpy compared to everyone else who worked there. Although I suppose, in their defense, it’s not much fun to be a cook in a Hospice facility, where no one’s particularly interested in food. But still.
Anyway, I did as the terse voice had instructed and waited near the empty front desk for someone to come get me. But as the minutes ticked away with no one appearing, I grew increasingly impatient.
Ok, I reasoned with myself, maybe it’s just been a particularly hard night. Maybe a lot of people died, or were in pain so they’ve been super busy. God, Peggy, they’ve been up all night - give them a break.
But when no one appeared after a couple more minutes, my growing impatience bloomed into self-righteous indignation. How could they make me wait like this? I fumed silently. No one coming to visit their dying mother should have to wait even one second to get in! Especially this early in the morning!
A few more minutes went by and my irritation finally got the better of me, so I headed down the hall on my own. ‘F...this’ I muttered to myself. ‘This is ridiculous. What if I was on my way to work and this was the only time I had all day to visit? What if I only had a few minutes to spend with her? '
Indignation for my poor, nonexistent, working self was consuming my thoughts as I rounded the corner to the nurse’s station and saw a smiling aide hurrying toward me, raising her hand in a little half-wave when she recognized me.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ she said, turning back to walk with me toward Mom’s room. ‘We couldn’t hear very well through the intercom, so weren’t sure who we were letting in! Sorry to keep you waiting! It’s been one of those nights!’
‘That’s okay, no worries,’ I returned her smile, my indignant self instantly appeased by her warm greeting. ‘I figured you were all really busy. Do you know how Mom’s night was?’
‘Pretty quiet,’ she assured me. ‘She’s such a gem - I have to tell you, we all really love her.’ The aide (I wished I could remember her name...Kelly? Sandy? Tracy?...they were all blurring together), stopped outside the nurse’s station, plopping herself purposefully down in front of the computer.
‘Let me know if you need anything,’ she said as she picked up a folder, ‘I’ll be here until 7.’
I stood there awkwardly for a moment, wanting to ask a few more questions - did Mom wake up at all during the night? Did she need any extra pain medication? - but Kelly/Sandy/Tracy was already typing away, her attention intent on the screen in front of her.
Now it has never been in my nature to be pushy, or expect someone to drop what they’re doing because of me, but ever since Mom had arrived at Hospice it seemed that was exactly what I did expect.
If Mom was in pain, I wanted pain medication, right then. If she was hungry, I wanted food brought, right then.
And if I had questions, I wanted them answered, right then.
It seemed that having a dying mother brought out my inner 4-year-old...I wanted what I wanted when I wanted it.
But as much as I wished the aide would drop what she was doing and answer my questions, I could see that she really was trying to get something done, so decided to let it go and, albeit a bit reluctantly, headed down to Mom's room.
The door was slightly ajar, so I pushed it open slowly, a little nervous that I would walk in and find her well...dead. Somehow, even though I really hoped that she would slip away peacefully in her sleep one night, I really, really didn’t want to be the one to find her.
I paused just inside to let my eyes adjust to the dim light, then tiptoed over to the bed, leaning over to see if she was awake.
But Mom was sleeping peacefully, her eyes gently closed, her chest rising and falling under the blanket with each labored breath. Her head was turned slightly away toward the windows, as if maybe she’d been looking out of them when she’d drifted to sleep.
Except that, wait...she couldn't have been looking out of them because, much to my immediate annoyance, I saw that the window blinds had been closed, again, despite our continued requests that they be kept open.
It's not that we were trying to be difficult or nit-picky, although I realize it must sound that way. It was just that Mom really loved having the blinds up, even at night, so she could look out.
But it seemed that no matter how many times we asked, the blinds were always closed when we arrived in the morning.
So annoying, my indignant self muttered. Why can’t anyone remember to keep them open?
They probably just forgot, my nicer self countered. Most people like to have the blinds pulled at night. Maybe we should just leave a little note to remind them.
Making my way around the bed carefully, I pulled the blinds up slowly, one at a time, as quietly as I could. The world outside was still in shadows, the pre-dawn light diffusing the room in a soft gray tinge.
And it was that world, the one on the other side of the windows, that we wanted Mom to be able to see. Even if it was just trees and sky, and even if those trees and sky were shrouded in darkness, being able to look out and see something beyond the four walls of the Hospice room made the very small world she was in feel a little bit bigger.
Isn't it funny how our worlds start out small when we’re born, then get bigger and bigger as we grow older, until suddenly, if we live long enough, they start to shrink again?
I remember watching this happen with one of our dogs as he aged. When Rip was young we would take him out on long walks in the woods behind our house, never quite able to tire him out no matter how far we went. As the years passed, the walks gradually became shorter and shorter, until one day he couldn’t make it down the hill to the woods anymore.
So then we walked him around our yard, until the time came that he couldn’t do that either. Then it was half the yard. Then just around the house.
Smaller and smaller Rip’s world kept getting, until the day he couldn’t make it off his bed.
We watched the same kind of thing happen to Mom the older she got. First she had to give up traveling to other countries. Then she had to give up driving to Maine. Then driving, period. A couple of years after that she had to give up her home of 32 years and move into a much smaller apartment.
And now here she was, in a world the size of a hospital bed and a twelve foot square Hospice room.
So even if we had to ask a hundred times a day that the window blinds in her room be kept open, we would do that for Mom. Because it’s really hard to watch the world of someone you love grow smaller and smaller, spiraling in until there’s nowhere left for them to go.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I was just settling myself into the recliner when I saw Mom’s eyes flutter open. She stared out the window for a moment before turning her head toward the clock on the opposite wall.
“Hey, Mom” I rose up from where I was sitting and moved over to sit on the side of the bed, giving her a gentle kiss on her forehead.
“Is it morning?” she asked, her voice fuzzy and thick from sleep.
“It is. Still early though - just past six”. Her nasal cannula was a little askew, so I repositioned it on her nose, pulling the tubing from underneath the pillow to give it some slack. I smoothed her white hair off her forehead, being careful not to disturb the staples still in her head.
‘Thank you’, she mumbled, her eyes drifting closed again. ‘I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
“I’m sorry it’s taking me so long to die.”
My breath caught in my throat at her words, and for a second I wasn’t sure whether I should laugh or cry.
“Oh, Mom, no…don’t say that. It’s just not time. Maybe you’re just not ready to go.”
A small, sad smile crossed her lips, though her eyes remained closed.
‘Maybe. But I don’t think so,” she murmured softly.
Waiting a few breaths to see if she’d say anything more, I wondered if there was something more I should be saying. But she remained quiet, her face relaxing back into sleep, so I stayed quiet, too.
*Note to Reader: This is a story in progress, so I am sharing it as I write it, as a way to spur me on. If you're interested in following along, here is the link to the others I've written so far. Thanks!