LOSING MOM - Part 25

The following days were strangely surreal because even if Mom hadn’t fallen, even if she hadn’t lost so much blood from the gash on her head that she had to have multiple blood transfusions that would exasperate her congestive heart failure, causing her to spiral downhill so fast that we'd be forced to make the impossible decision to move her to Hospice, even if none of that had ever happened, my sisters and I would have still been in Ohio that weekend, because we had made plans months before to be with Mom for her birthday that year.

So everything we did during the next couple of days was made even more poignant with thoughts of what we would have been doing if she hadn’t fallen. If she wasn’t in Hospice. If she wasn’t dying.

If. If. If.

For instance, if Mom hadn’t fallen, rather than having yet another tasteless grilled cheese sandwich from the Hospice cafeteria, perhaps we would be having lunch at Mom’s favorite spot, The Lamplight, a small old-fashioned restaurant she loved to go to, even if we all inwardly groaned at the prospect. It was a quirky little place, half bakery, half restaurant, usually filled with a sea of gray haired lunch-goers. The decor was a bit fussy, like the dining room of someone’s elderly aunt, with faded floral wallpaper and doilies on every surface.

Mom might order a small cup of soup, and perhaps half a turkey sandwich if she was feeling hungry. Iced tea, unsweetened, with lemon, and lots of ice. I would always order the same thing - a turkey BLT on a croissant and iced tea, too, or maybe just water. Afterwards, while waiting to pay the bill, I’d peruse the assortment of home-baked cookies in the display case under the cash register and pick a couple for us to share, maybe the chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin, depending on how they looked that day.

Or maybe, if Mom hadn’t fallen, rather than spending the afternoon sitting by her bedside staring numbly out the window at the bleak March weather wondering if that was the day we would finally lose her, we would have taken her to the art museum to see the current exhibit. Or, if there wasn’t anything new she wanted us to see, we might have walked around its beautiful sculpture garden instead, or popped into Collector’s Corner, the posh museum store, just to look around. Mom had volunteered for years there as a docent, so the Toledo Museum had been a big part of my childhood from Saturday morning art classes to semi-annual school field trips.

I’m not sure why, maybe one too many field trips or art classes, but as a young adult I lost my interest in art and was the only daughter not to study Art History in school. I have no idea if that was a disappointment to Mom, she never let on if it was, but whenever a trip to the museum was suggested, she and my sisters would, somewhat condescendingly (in my humble opinion), cajole me into going with them. I would sigh heavily, just to be annoying, but in the end would always go along.

Interestingly, though, as soon as I walked through the museum’s heavy glass doors I was always happy to be there. From the quiet hush that enveloped us once we entered the vast entry hall, a hush somehow more pronounced by the sound of our footsteps on the well worn parquet floor, to the faint yet familiar smell of I'm not quite sure what - paint? antique wood? floor wax? - I was immersed in a time warp of nostalgic memory.

Shadows of my younger self would flash by as we passed through the Egyptian room where, much to my childhood angst, an actual mummy lay ensconced in a glass case, or stopped to take in the details of the perfectly replicated Dutch bedroom replete with little wooden clogs neatly placed by the tiny painted door. The museum, as it turned out, proved to be a treasure trove of (mostly) happy memories and I was always glad that I went.

Perhaps if Mom hadn’t fallen, rather than sitting around trying to figure out the easiest, fastest way we could grab some dinner and still get back to Hospice in time for the evening shift change, we would have planned a fun birthday celebration at one of Mom’s favorite restaurants, maybe even invited a couple of her friends to join us. Or, and this is more likely given the cold weather and Mom’s growing frailty, maybe we would have planned a nice, quiet dinner right in her apartment. One of the biggest perks of living in a retirement facility like Swan Creek was that if you didn’t feel like eating in the main dining room with the other residents (which Mom never did!), you could order your meal to be delivered, hot and ready to eat, right to your door.

Of course, since it was her birthday weekend, we would have tried to make ordering in a little more special, so perhaps, while Mom was resting, one of us would have snuck down to her favorite corner flower shop, Angels, and picked out a few sprigs of flowers for a centerpiece on her small, mahogany, drop-leaf table. We would have pulled the table away from the wall in order to fit four chairs around it, then set it with her favorite round, wildflower placemats, and raided her stash of ‘better than everyday’ paper napkins.

Perhaps one of us would have noticed something missing from the table and remembered her three, small, cylindrical glass candles she liked to use but kept stored for special occasions in her ‘odds and ends’ cabinet under the kitchen counter. Pulling them out, we might check to make sure they each had enough lamp oil, then carefully place them on the table as a finishing touch.

Mom might have emerged from her bedroom then, her oxygen tubing trailing behind her, her hair a bit flattened on the side from her long nap, a grateful smile lighting up her face at the pretty table setting.

“It looks like a party,” she may have exclaimed. “You girls are too good to me!”

Then, while waiting for dinner to be delivered, we would have poured ourselves a cocktail and watched the evening news in Mom's cozy living room. Maybe a certain news story would have sparked a little discussion, perhaps even escalating into a small argument if it was a particularly controversial topic. But chances are it wouldn't have lasted long, and by the time dinner arrived we would have already moved on to something else.

Or maybe not. Sometimes our rather stubborn, 89-year-old mother just liked to argue.

But, sadly, we didn’t get to do any of those things we might have because, well, Mom did fall. And she was in Hospice. And she was dying.

And after the horrible night she’d just had, Sal, Lib and I found ourselves swimming in a sea of angst, and worry, and uncertainty. Who should stay and who should go? Should we all stay? Should one of us stay and two of us go? Two of us stay and one of us go? But how could anyone leave if she was so close to the end? But how could we all stay if she wasn’t?

Round and round we went, dizzying ourselves with the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘who shoulds’ until, one by one, we each made our own decision about what we would do.

And because none of us could imagine being anywhere else, we all decided to stay.

*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, you'll find Parts 1-24 on my channel page. Thanks!