The Day My Mom Died...
As I sit and listen to my mom breathe her last breaths the sound is no longer rhythmic. I am in a quiet, softly lit room, surrounded by my loved ones, keeping watch over things I have no control of. It does not seem real, this watching I am doing. Over the last several hours there have been exhausted smiles,desperate tears,and many,many shaky breaths. I feel like we are in a painting, or a picture of some sort. I am watching my older sisters...one is asleep the other cannot....I wish I could take all of the pain away for them, for my dad, for my kids, for all of us...I wish we were safe and warm and happy like Christmas should be...instead I am watching, waiting, hyper aware of every sound and every nuance in the noises around me.
The Christmas tree that my son set up glows blue in the night and the only other sound is the heater groaning on and clicking off alternating the temperature between lava hot and arctic cold...but my mom no longer notices the temperature. After months of constantly being cold she is impervious to such things.
She woke tonight to ask for my son and when he arrived, bearing gifts, because he was determined to give his beloved grandma one last Christmas, she alternately woke and slept clutching his hand...she came to for one present opening, then another.....both were her favourite chocolates. Of course he remembered which were her favorites, he knew all her favorites........and what else do you gift a dying person in their last hours?
For us, gifting our mom/grandma with our time, our love, our laughter and tears (although she forbade crying), was the best we could do and come to think of it, was all she would have wanted. Us there so she could soak up our presence and we could soak up the immense love she had for us.
They say the last sense to go is your hearing...I witnessed this when, despite the rasping in her lungs and the exhaustion in her body and mind, my sweet, kind, (but cheeky) mama side eyed the nurse when she was annoyed at something the nurse had said. I like to think it was her way of allowing us to feel the essence of her, her personality, one last time. Throughout these last hours she responded to our voices, and at one point she woke up and very clearly said "thank you",
.....and later when she just as clearly told us it was time for her to go, we told her to be on her way. We would be here, standing vigil, remaining by her side, standing strong
..... exactly the way she taught us.
Update: Our beloved mom passed away November 30/2019 at 6:56 am surrounded by her family, her hand holding ours, and her favourite Elvis song playing softly in the background.
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