Caregiving Journal 19

My Mom died at 12:40 pm yesterday, Sunday, May 22.  It wasn't peaceful at first.  She had pneumonia and she was gasping for air, but she died in her own bed, in her own home with her daughter and her son and her granddaughter and her great-grandson there with her.  I had slept with her all night, listening to her ragged breathing, placing my hand on her every few minutes, holding her hand, kissing her and whispering to her that I was there and realizing that she was still breathing strongly.  By the time dawn came I felt that in a little while I could go home, and be with my husband and daughter and Alex for awhile before coming back.  My brother was sleeping on the couch and was finally getting some real rest.  I sat with Mom for 2 more hours, reading pieces she'd written for her writer's group, about "surprises", "dreams", "Autumn".  She continued to seem to be breathing with ease and sleeping deeply.  The fever of the night before had broken.  At 7:00 I decided to go home for awhile.

I had an hour before anyone got up--quiet--thinking time.  I made a big pot of coffee and read an article in a magazine, enjoying the moments of peace.  When the gang got up Alex and I made pancakes and we all made plans for the morning--Carolyn had to take Mom's car back, she had to pack, I wanted to be with Mom until I took Carolyn and Alex to Silverdale to catch the Airporter to fly back to San Diego.  Alex had to memorize a poem for school and after pancakes we found a couple of short poems about nature on the Internet and he started to learn them.  While his Mom was getting ready he played one last game on Grandma's iPad (mine, in case you are confused about Grandmas), Michael packed all the gear into the cars and I was back at Mom's by 12:15.

When I got there she was in distress.  She couldn't make any sound so Stanley, who was still asleep on the couch when I got there, didn't realize anything was wrong.  She was hot, the temperature had spiked, her mouth was open and she was either gasping or trying to say something.  I immediately got the liquid Tylenol and slowly, slowly, so as not to choke her, dripped it into her mouth with a syringe.  Just the day before we had been given the syringe and the stick sponges they use in the hospital when someone is thirsty but they have trouble swallowing.  I soaked one with water and pressed it around Mom's mouth in between the small squirts of Tylenol--hoping she'd be able to swallow.  While I was frantically doing this Carolyn and Alex arrived and Stanley woke up.  Carolyn got on the bed and began talking to Mom, telling her we were there, asking her if she could hear us.  I gave Mom the two "Hospice rescue meds", the morphine and the tranquilizer, stroked her head, held her hand.  Carolyn held her other hand.  Stanley was at the foot of the bed and Alex was next to his Mom.  I was on Mom's left side, Carolyn on her right.  She calmed noticeably.  Her mouth stopped trying to speak or gasp.  But we noticed that her chest wasn't rising and falling as often and we began to see the "apnea", the absence of breathing, followed by a small gasp and the resumption of breath.  Carolyn and I made eye contact and I put my hand on Mom's chest.  I said, "This is what I did all night long--checking Mom's breathing, counting the strong breaths and then the weak ones."  Carolyn asked me if Mom was breathing as strongly as last night.  She wasn't.  It couldn't have been more than 20 minutes from the time I got there and the moment we realized she was leaving us.  I believe she waited for someone and when she knew we were all there, she relaxed and let go.  As her breathing became more and more a whisper her skin turned to alabaster, the wrinkles in her face smoothed, she became ethereal.  I broke down.  Alex said, "Her eyes are still open", hoping, I think, that she was still alive.  At the last breath, when no more breaths followed, we looked at each other and knew.  Stanley sobbed, "Oh, Mama, my best friend."  I stroked her head saying "My poor little Mama, I can't believe you're gone, I can't believe you're gone."  Carolyn cried and cried and took care of me, too.

Alex was the extraordinary one.  As we accepted that Mom has passed from the world (as we know it) we began to do things for her.  I put perfume on her hands and neck.  I combed her hair and put her favorite blue shawl around her shoulders.  I put her rings on my finger.  Alex brought the Easter Bunny that Mom named Pinkie when I gave it to her at Northwoods, another bunny with an "I Love to Read" t-shirt on it and a bunny made of kitchen towels that Mom had won at a baby shower for granddaughter-in-law, Irene, several years ago.  He lined them up along her right side.  He ripped a page out of his drawing notebook that had a rose he'd drawn, drawing it the way Stanley had shown him, colored in in red, and he put it on his great-grandma's chest.  And then he put his notebook under it.  He was going to give her his art notebook.  We wouldn't let him do that though, telling him Mom wouldn't want him to stop drawing.  She was proud of him for that.  Crying...I have to pause for a moment.

We started laughing and telling stories--I wish we'd had wine, but we drank strong coffee that Stanley had made for us instead.  We were glad that Mom had met Anthony, the beautifully handsome Hospice social worker, just 2 days before she died.  We were happy that on Thursday, when Carolyn and Alex arrived, she was talking and laughing and telling jokes and that she told Alex she loved him and that he was a beautiful and talented boy.  I was so thankful that the last caregiver she had on Friday had been the girl who hummed and sang as she went about her duties.  It was a gift.  It was wonderful that all of Mom's flowers were blooming during the last week and that she had three bouquets in her room that Carolyn and I had picked for her.  Her room had been filled with the smell of lilacs and she could see her lilac trees outside her bedroom window.

I am also glad that she had been able to experience the fullness of life at Northwoods, that she had enjoyed and openly appreciated all the people who cared for her there, that she played Bingo and won prizes and that I took her to the Mother's Day Tea and she wore a hat one more time and ate a huge chocolate covered strawberry.  She found men to admire there and to dream about and she told all of them they were "good-looking".  Kay's fiance', Alan, sat on her bed and kissed her.  She ate cream pie and the aides made special cocoa for her.  She felt as if she was being treated like a queen and she deserved to be because she was so loving in return.

I must stop writing--the tears are flowing so hard I can't see the screen.  I have more to say, but it can't be today.  Thank you all for your support.  I will need you again in the weeks to come as the business part of death begins, but for now it's time to rest.