4myMom
New User
Joined: 23 Oct 2006
Posts: 1
|
 Posted: Mon Oct 23, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: It happened to me also... |
 |
|
[color=green][/color][size=18][/size][color=indigo][/color]  Hello, I was in the same boat as you were approx 2 years ago, in May...
I live in Las Vegas, and the rest of my family lives on the east coast, my mother lived in PA and all my sisters and brothers in Va. There are 7 kids in my family, and we were extremely close, mom's house was the gathering spot especially at christmas. Now, my mom did not have cancer but she did have emphesema (sp?). I had not been to see her in probably over a year, she had known she was sick...and all my sisters knew how sick, but I don't really call out much and vice versa.
One day, I get a call from somebody in my family, I can't even remember who it was, they said "Mom may only have 24 hours left to live" I was stunned, I never even knew she was in the hospital, all my siblings had been taking turns making sure somebody was there with mama, so she would never be alone.
I started to prepare to fly out there, rushing to get myself together and having a helluva time finding a flight. Finally...I realized, I wouldn't make that 24 hour deadline. I didn't know what to do, so I grabbed the vacuum and started to vacuum, all the while talking as if my mother was there, saying to her "mama, you know you aren't going anywhere yet, because you always need me to make you laugh, you know you want to see me" I was crying at the same time, I was telling her she wasn't going, I was pleading with her...I thought I would never see my mother alive again...suddenly the phone rang, it was my step father and he said "nay nay, don't rush it, mom's had a sudden turn for the better", I like to believe that she heard me talking to her and was giving me a chance since I was the only kid she hadn't seen yet. My mother and I were extremely close, never had a single argument or fight the whole 41 years I had been alive, I loved her fiercely.
So...I got my flight out there, and my step dad brought me to the hospital where my mother was, it was a catholic hospital and the doctors and nurses were very sweet to my mom. Now...you have to remember, I really only had a 2 day notice of my mother's pending death.
When i walked into her room, I started crying, she was so little, she had tubes all in her, she just kind of looked at me with her eyes which lit up a little, then looked away, I was afraid she didn't know who I was, I sat down and began to tell her how much I loved her...she had tons of little stuffed animals (beanie babies) in the room, but she had no flowers, her whole house was floral this floral that, and she had no flowers. I took out my drawing pad and my gel pens, and began to draw flowers for her, each drawing had an inscription of some type such as "to my precious sweet mother, I love you", I don't know if she noticed, sometimes she seemed to know who I was, sometimes not, and that made me cry and just seeing here laying there knowing she couldn't drink any water (tube in her throat) nor eat anymore food ever again....god it killed me, I dipped water on my fingers and rubbed them on her chapped dry lips, she reacted like a starving baby...i rubbed lotion onto her red dry feet, I just hoped I had made her feel a little better...but, I am babbling, forgive me...
I sat there for 4 days and went and slept on her couch at night (that was HER couch), my siblings had used up much time from work, so I was the fill in for them all...I sat there, I talked to her, and I read a book about those last days for those with terminal illnesses. Suddenly she looked very alert at me and was trying to tell me something, she looked like it was the most important thing she ever had to say to me, she looked at me with urgency and was trying to speak, nearly dislodgin her breathing tube...I had to tell her to "shhh...lie back mama, you are going to hurt yourself" tears welling in my eyes, she gave me an odd glance then looked away from as if she was pissed at me, I still don't know what she wanted to say to me so urgently, I tried giving her a pen, but she was too weak to make anything but a light scribble line up and down up and down.
I could go on...but I think you get the idea...finally I told her i had to go back to vegas and for her to hang in there and i'd see her again. My sister from northern va picked me up and we went to her house, approx 1 hour or so away, if that.
My sister was trying to force me to get a pedicure that she would pay for when her cell phone rang, and she hung up and yelled to the siblings "mom's about to die, come on!" we piled into 2 separate cars, me, my older sis, and younger sis in her escalade, and my little brother and my older sis in his car, my other little brother and my stepdad were alreay at my mom's side. We sped northward, all of us calling ppl on our phones...
About 15 mins away from the hospital, my lil sis said "someone call and check on mom"...my older sister did, i remember she asked about her, then suddenly started to cry and said "mom's gone", my tough little sister began crying horribly while driving, which made me cry, to see her cry ( i was always the joking things off, hide emotions type).
My two sisters said "ok, then i guess we go to alex's house" (the step dad), and suddenly I spoke up and yelled "NO...I want to go see my mom, I want to hug her with no tubes all over her to worry about, I want to tell her goodbye and that I love her", the were agreeable so we headed to the hospital. When we got there , the nurses who weren't expecting us ran to try and make her presentable...
Let me tell you, when I walked in that room and saw her just lying there, I totally lost it, I threw myself on the bed and held her and just kept saying "it's ok mama, it's ok" I just kept talking to her, I brushed her hair, I kissed her forehead and told her I wasn't going to go to her funeral, I didn't know if I could handle seeing her being buried, I wanted to remember her in her robe and slippers, her fav thing to wear at home. I told her one more time that I loved her so much and I was sorry I didn't come to see her sooner (by now my sisters were just waiting for me outside, kinda worried about me and my reaction), all I kept thinking was how sorry I was that I never got to hear her laugh again, or her voice again, I did however get a playful smile from her at one point during my visit earlier in the week, she was definitely herself at that time, briefly.
I flew home the next morning, I didn't cry on the plane, I acted normal, I acted normal around my husband, I proceeded as I had before I left...except for I started just going out and staying out all night, and my poor husband didn't say a word, he knew it was grief....but I didn't.
Two weeks later, I was messing around on my computer, when in my mind I suddenly pictured my mother, lying there on the bed...the last time I saw her, and I broke down, I never cried so hard in my life, I realized that the one thing that was really bothering me, was if my little brother and stepdad were holding her when she died (because they just decided ...no more tubes, enough is enough, and let her go), was anybody holding her hand as she left, was she scared? I prayed that she wasn't scared, I couldn't bear to think that, she didn't deserve it, nobody does...
I used to be a happy go lucky person, I always made ppl laugh, mom called me "crazy nay nay", I was the luckiest person I thought, to have such a close family, the world and life was great! I won't lie to you, that part of me went with my mother, to this day, and even now, I cry with so much pain, I was 41 when my mother died, I never knew anybody really close who had ever died...so my first experience with it was with my best friend, my mom. I did not think I would ever be happy again, here it is 2 years later, I am much more cynical...I haven't spoken to anybody in my family in at least a year (i was kind of like that before tho). I think of my step dad, who met my mother when she was 36 and he was 24, of the only woman he had ever loved, sitting there alone, watching tv and turning to say some smart ass remark to her, and she's not there. I remember right before she died, asking him if he was ok and this mean ol redneck georgia man broke down and said through tears " i don't know what I am going to do without mama, nay nay, I don't know what I am going to do"
I never thought I would get over the grief that I felt, and I haven't, but it has stopped hurting at such close intervals, I am not trying to scare or depress you, I am simply telling of my own feelings in regards to my first time having to deal with a death of a truly loved one...my mom was my world...and she was suddenly no longer there.
I apologize for the length of this post, but I think in a way it has helped me, to be able to tell at least a portion of my story, and to prepare you and not to gild the lily...it will hurt, and I am sorry for that, nothing anyone can do will stop that pain.
I finally went to all kinds of support forums on the internet and read about the stages of grief and realized that I was only in like step 3 of a 10 step process, I still grieve, I miss my mother so much it kills me, but I do finally laugh, I do smile...
Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone, his
own burden, his own way.
-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh |
|
Search 
Email Digests
Register to post
Profile 
Check private messages 
Log in
What is this ?
We subscribe to the HONcode principles. Verify here. All content and posts are copyright.
