LOSING MOM - Part 52

What I noticed first when I walked into the room was what wasn’t there. Gone was the gentle hiss of the oxygen concentrator, and the long snaking tube of the nasal cannula up to Mom’s nose. Gone was the tray table in front of her with its familiar clutter of lip ointment tubes, plastic water cups and assorted sponge swabs. Gone was the angst-filled sound of her ragged breathing.

The room was so quiet. Mom’s body lay prone on the bed, covered half way up by a clean, white sheet. She was wearing her pale pink and white striped flannel nightgown, the one she liked best because it covered the dark brown age spots on her chest, especially the big one above her collarbone. It was slightly askew, the row of buttons down the front placket pulled to one side, accentuating the bony flatness of her frail chest. We had considered for a minute having her cremated in something a bit more dignified, maybe a favorite sweater or blouse, but somehow the pink flannel nightie just felt more right, more comfortable. And though my mind refused to let me see anything more than a brief glimpse of my mother being loaded into the crematorium oven before blocking the horrific scene out completely, it helped to think of her tiny, worn out body covered in the cozy, familiar flannel.

Her hands were crossed just below the belly, her crooked fingers clenched in loose fists. A pale white, artificial hydrangea blossom rested between them, its presence somewhat disconcerting, giving me pause. A part of me was grateful to whoever thought to put it there - clearly we all loved hydrangeas as there had been a vase full of them on the windowsill in her room for weeks. It was nice someone had noticed. But Mom would have hated it - she would have considered it a bit cheesy I think, nice for someone else perhaps, but not for her, thank you very much - so another part of me wanted to grab it out of her hands and toss it in the wastebasket.

And then there was her face. Oh god, her face. Mom’s head lay flat against the single, white pillow, her jaw jutting upward, mouth wide open as if death had caught her trying to take in that last breath. Her eyes were closed, her skin pale and waxy, though still pinkish, not the grey I always imagined a corpse would be. If it weren’t for the absolute stillness of her body - no throbbing pulse in her neck, no rise and fall of her chest, no erratic breathing - she could have just been in a deep, deep sleep. But the stillness was profound, as though the air around her had stopped moving, too. It was peaceful and unsettling at the same time.

Sal left, offering me some time alone with Mom, and I pulled a chair up close to the bed. Staring down at her lifeless face, I was surprised to feel the same awkwardness I’d felt when the vet had left me alone with Nitro, our first lab, after he had died so many years before. It had become obvious to me that day, standing over my beautiful dog’s dead body, that the part of him that had made him him, was no longer there. This is silly, I remember thinking. Nitro’s not here. I’d patted his big, black head one last time and left the room, hoping the vet didn’t think less of me for not staying longer. It just seemed so pointless.

I’d assumed it would be different with Mom, that I would want to spend some time alone with her before the funeral home came to take her away. It was hard to fathom never seeing her face again, and I’d expected I would take my time saying that final goodbye. But sitting there next to her felt just as pointless as it had with Nitro. Maybe Mom was hovering around somewhere nearby, but she was definitely not in the motionless body lying in that bed. 

Pushing the chair back to stand up, I leaned over to kiss her forehead one last time, letting my hand rest for a moment on top of her head. Her skin felt dry and cool, her white hair still soft under my touch. “Love you, Mom,” I whispered, the words sounding as empty as the space around her. Was it even possible for someone to ever know how much you loved them? I hoped so, but in that moment, after a million I love you’s had been said between us, especially in the past few weeks, I wished I’d said it a million times more. 

Sal was waiting in the little alcove across the corridor when I opened the door.  “Okay?” she asked when she saw me, and I nodded my head. 

“I guess I’ll go tell Martin we’re ready,” I offered, adding as an afterthought, “unless you want more time?”

“No, no - I’m good,” Sal smiled sadly. “We’ve had lots of time already, I think.”

Things started to move very quickly, then, and it seemed that the funeral home people arrived impossibly fast, like they’d been lurking outside in the driveway waiting for the call. The two attendants nodded solemnly toward Sal and me as they rolled the gurney past us into Mom’s room, the door closing behind them with a soft click. Moments later - at least it felt like moments - we watched silently as they rolled the gurney back out, their movements slow and exact as they skillfully maneuvered it through the door and into the hall. Wrapped neatly in a stiff, black bag, Mom’s already tiny body seemed even more diminished, like it was disappearing of its own accord now that she no longer needed it. It was hard to imagine it was my mother in that bag. My mother...how could that be? I took a step closer to Sal as they wheeled the stretcher past us down the corridor. 

Did we follow them out?  Sal says we didn’t, though I find it hard to believe we would have just stood there and watched them roll our mother away without us.  But I definitely have no recollection of watching them load her into, well... I’m not even sure what. A hearse? An ambulance? Some sort of specialized funeral home van? Looking back, I feel like that’s something I should know, like I sent my mother off in some stranger’s car without a second thought.

What I do remember next is being back in her room, gathering up all the things we’d amassed over the past six weeks to make Mom, and us, more comfortable. Quilts and blankets, needlepoint pillows and family photos, vases filled with flowers - we’d brought things in so gradually I was surprised by how much there was. And though Martin assured us we could take our time, Sal and I worked quickly, each making a couple of trips to our separate cars to get everything loaded as fast as we could. It felt a little bit like moving a child out of a dorm room at the end of the school year, back and forth down the hall until nothing was left but the furniture that had been there when they’d arrived in the fall. Empty and sterile, the room was ready for whoever would be moving in next.

And just like that, it was over. As long as it had taken for Mom to die, she was gone in a heartbeat. So many weeks and days and hours and minutes of dreading and longing for the moment I was in, and there I was, in it. I didn't want to be. I wished I was anywhere else in the world.

But there was nothing to do but move forward through it. Sal and I hugged Martin and the aides goodbye, thanking them tearfully for everything they’d done for us, for our mom, and walked out of Hospice for the last time.