LOSING MOM - Part 10
It’s funny what the mind remembers, and what it doesn’t. You would think I would remember things like how we told Mom that she was moving to Hospice that day. What did we say? Were we all there together? Was she sad? Scared? Resigned?
How did we find out that there was a bed for her in Perrysburg? Did the nurse tell us? Did the Hospice liaison come by?
I wonder how long we waited for the ambulance transport to arrive, or what the discharge process even was?
I honestly have no recollection of these things, no matter how hard I’ve tried to remember. Sal and Lib don’t seem to either.
But here’s what we all do remember - Mom was spiraling downward so fast we weren’t sure she was even going to make it to Hospice.
After her long, horrible night on and off the bedpan, she was completely exhausted, both mentally and physically. The nice nurse suggested that perhaps a ‘brief’ (hospital euphemism for ‘adult diaper’) might give Mom a break from the ordeal of the bedpan, and alleviate some of her angst.
‘What do you think, Mom?’ Sal asked. ‘Want to give it a try?’
Now, if anyone had told me that my mom would agree to wearing a diaper, even if she was on her deathbed, I would have laughed them right out the door. No way, I would say. If there is one thing I know about my mother it’s that she would never, ever put on a diaper.
When Mom started having bladder issues a few years before, she wouldn’t even buy the pads that were specifically made for leaks of that nature. She insisted on using the pads meant for younger female issues, and no amount of reasoning would change her mind.
I'm not sure if it made her feel less old to walk down the feminine care aisle rather than the one for adult incontinence, or if maybe she'd tried them and didn't like them. But every time I mentioned that they might work better, she would just shake her head and say, 'No, Peg. I like these.'
So when Mom nodded weakly and told Sal that yes, she would try the ‘brief’, it was as though a death knell began to toll quietly in the corners of her hospital room. Sal, Lib and I heard it clear as day, and looked at each other in despair.
We were definitely losing our mom.
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I guess there was actually some time between finding out that Mom was going to Perrysburg and the ambulance arriving to take her, because I remember the three of us joking that maybe we could ask the driver to make a slight detour and take her to our summer place in Maine, instead.
Because as much as Mom loved Perrysburg, she loved our camp in Maine even more.
Built by her grandfather in 1917, the camp is set on a rock cliff overlooking the St. Croix River and Mom had spent nearly every summer of her life there, as had we. It’s nothing fancy...in fact, up until my sisters and I started bringing our own children, there wasn’t even plumbing. Or a phone. We filled buckets with water from a hose that was fed by a stream, used chemical toilets, and if we had to make a phone call we either went to the neighbors, or drove a mile down the road to a pay phone.
The camp itself is as rustic as they come. Built on stilts to withstand the 30 foot tides that come in and out twice a day, it is one giant room with three different areas; a living room filled with century-old wicker furniture around a large, open fireplace; a kitchen that consists mainly of an enormous, old-fashioned soapstone sink and a countertop with shelves underneath that my dad made using an old built-in bunk; and a dining room table that is large enough to fit the whole family (18 and growing) when we're all there together.
A giant post in the middle of the room supports the ceiling rafters, making it look like the underneath of an enormous wooden umbrella.
We all loved it just as it was, but when the grandchildren started to arrive, Mom and Dad decided it was time to make things a bit more user-friendly. They put in a phone. And plumbing. Added a couple of out-buildings so we could all be there at the same time.
And fortunately they did, because it allowed Mom to be there on her own after Dad died. In fact, it wasn't until her health began to decline in her mid-80's that we felt one of us had to be there with her.
But we knew the time would come when she wouldn’t be able to make the trip all the way from Ohio, although up until then she had always found a way, despite any setback she might have had during the winter.
The promise of going to Maine was like a giant carrot we could dangle in front of her if we ever thought she needed something to work toward. Or something to lift her spirits if she was feeling low.
And she never once failed to grab for it. Even when she was in a full body brace from a fall down the stairs. Or when she went on oxygen 24/7. These hurdles weren’t easy, and certainly limited what she was able to do while she was there, but Mom drew great strength from being in Maine so the extra effort was always worth it. To her, and to us.
So Maine has always been our constant. The place we gather every summer to be with each other, our families, and Mom. I know we have soul mates in this life, but I think maybe we can have soul places, too. Places where you feel totally at peace when you are there.
Maine was definitely my Mom’s soul place. And my sisters. And mine. One of the hardest things we had to come to terms with was that Mom wouldn’t be going back.
And as we sat there fantasizing about hijacking the ambulance so she could spend the end of her life looking out at her beloved St. Croix River, we realized that even if we couldn’t get her to Maine, maybe we could bring a little bit of Maine to her.
‘Remember that picture Paul asked Kit to take last summer?’ I asked Sal and Lib. ‘The one of Mom’s view from her bedroom? Maybe we could blow it up really big and hang it somewhere in her new room."
My brothers-in-law had teamed up to get a really good photograph of the view of the river from Mom’s bedroom, as she had spent a good deal of time looking out at it the past summer, due to her oxygen constraints.
Paul, Sal’s husband, had trimmed the branches to open things up, and Kit, Lib’s husband and a professional photographer, had taken the perfect picture.
“That’s a great idea!” Sal immediately pulled out her laptop to find the fastest place to do it, while Lib called Kit to have him email her the image.
Crazy how the three of us latched onto this little project in such a big way. I guess focusing on something as inconsequential as a picture for our mother’s Hospice room helped us deal with the larger issue at hand - that our mother was actually going to Hospice.
And then suddenly the EMT’s were there, and things started to move very fast. The nurse and aide busied themselves around Mom, disconnecting her from all the various apparatus, while the EMT’s positioned the stretcher next to her bed.
My memory of this moment is fuzzy except that I was standing off to the side near the window, and when the EMT’s went to move Mom to the stretcher I had to turn away. The sight of those two men being so incredibly gentle with my tiny, frail mother as they counted to three and lifted her, sheets and all, onto the stretcher, just about broke my heart.
And as I looked out the window and saw the cars and people below coming and going as if it was just a perfectly normal day, the enormity of what was happening shook me to my core. Over and over in my head I remember thinking, ‘This can’t be happening. This can’t really be happening.”
But it was.
And keeping myself from dissolving into an ocean of tears took every ounce of strength I had.
My children used to love building towers with their wooden blocks and the taller it got, the more important it was to make sure the next block was perfectly balanced. It was scary to take your hand away in case the whole thing collapsed because you weren’t being careful enough.
In that moment, as they readied my mom to take her to Hospice, I felt like the person holding the block at the top of the teetering tower. And if I let my guard down, even for a second, the whole thing would topple over.
Because of me.
I don't know for sure, but I imagine Sal and Lib felt the same way. In fact, now that I think about it, maybe we were all holding up the same block, trying to keep it steady. And if one of us let go, it might upset the balance so much that the whole thing would come tumbling down.
So we kept our hands on the block. For ourselves, for each other, and most especially, for Mom.
*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!