Ξ March 9th, 2008 | → 31 Comments | ∇ mom |
BECAUSE GUILT IS A ONE WAY STREET
I love my mother, but I always tended to be in the “she is a wonderful and amazing, yet crazy, woman” camp. As most mothers and daughters tend to have a certain “dynamic,” so did my mudder and me. No matter what, though, I respected the woman.
As the oldest of nine (yep, 9) kids, Mom’s childhood was not as childish as mine. She had to be a junior Mom seeing as how my grandmother was either pregnant or trying desperately to wrangle the little ones while running the house, being a good wife, drinking too much, etc. It was probably a surprise to no one that at the age of 18 Mom did what lots of good Irish Catholic girls in that day did. She entered the convent and became a nun.
She said she was scared, felt as though she was stepping off the edge of a cliff, but she did it.
Mom worked hard to become a teacher while in the convent. A damn good teacher, too. Although not the consummate angel, Mom got into her fair share of trouble in the convent. (Think stealing statues of saints who were pierced through with arrows and placing him in mother superior’s bed. Yes, she so did. Or sending a student with a fully dissected raccoon to show mother superior. Who just so happened to be having lunch in the cafeteria at the time.) My mother loved the Lord, but eventually, after 12 years, decided that God had a different calling for her. So even terrified of what her life would become, she left the safety of the convent. Again she stepped off the cliff’s edge, but this time she said it was as dark as midnight.
Didn’t take too long for her younger brother’s charming friend to make his move on Mom. They married, had a beautiful baby girl (hi, that would be me). Working to put my father through school while she taught all day wasn’t easy, but she thought it was worth it. Until she came home to the house she paid for only to find him in bed with another woman. “Get out. Leave my baby, my house and my car, but get out.” Quickly Mom became a single mother in the early 70’s. And once more Mom stepped off of the cliff’s edge at midnight.
Working as a teacher, Mom met the widower father of a student. He was a police officer who had five kids and had lost his young wife to cancer. Quickly I went from being an only child to the youngest of six. Even as a young child I remember loving the hectic nature that quickly enveloped our house. The fact that when I was in middle school Mom went back to school for nursing didn’t even seem to upset the household dynamic too terribly much. I mean, the place was a wonderful zoo (did I mention the three dogs, at least one of which was a police dog?), so why not add to the insanity a bit with her back in college?
Even though they were complete opposites, Mom’s second marriage lasted 20 + years. I was already 19 and living in my own apartment when they separated. It was sad, but not a surprise. Just another cliff’s edge at midnight that Mom stepped from. After all, Mom’s job as a cancer nurse gave her enough income to take care of herself. Not simply take care of herself, but actually put herself through a Masters program. At the age of 60, Mom graduated with her Masters as a Nurse Practitioner.
Then the doctor found what she thought was scar tissue in Mom’s breast. Test results came back positive for cancer. Mom had never seen a darker midnight and of course that damn cliff was there. Good news was surgery and radiation did the trick, so after a few months Mom was good as new. We went away to Georgia for a little vacation together to celebrate. Even talked about perhaps Mom writing a book about her life. Instantly she knew the title would be “Stepping Off a Cliff at Midnight.”
Problem was, Mom wasn’t good as new. The cancer waited two years, but came roaring back. What in the late winter she thought was easily cured by acupuncture and vitamins turned out in the early spring to be cancer again. In her bones, in her brain, in her lungs. Fast advancing cancer. Cancer moving so fast that her doctor told me that Mom needed someone in her home with her 24 hours a day because he didn’t know what part of the brain the cancer would be effecting. Chemotherapy was started. If I couldn’t be with Mom I arranged for one of her siblings, one of her church friends, one of her Clean Water Action friends, one of her nursing friends or one of her kerjillion friends to sit and talk with her. One of Mom’s brothers rigged up our poor man’s emergency “help is on the way Mrs. Fletcher” button using a wireless doorbell. We put the button on a lanyard and gave her companion the bell part that would normally be mounted on a wall somewhere. My heart would tighten when I heard that doorbell. I would run to wherever Mom was only to find her laughing that she “got me.” Or to find her surprised that she rolled over in her sleep and accidentally set it off. (Those late night surprises were her favorites. Me? Not so much.)
She was slow moving and well aware of how weak she was getting, but oh how Mom loved the outpouring of support we received. Even my employer made it crystal clear that I was to take as much time as I needed and not worry about “vacation” time. For the first time in my life I realized that midnight was approaching and there would be a cliff that I would need to step from.
Me. Me! Those cliffs were never there for me and now I would be alone at one? No. Oh hell no. Not me. I would choose to be Cleopatra, Queen of Denial the Nile. There are no cliffs near the Nile. Besides, I was still a kid. Chronologically I was well over 30, but where Mom was concerned I always felt like that awkward high school kid. No matter how much she praised an adult accomplishment of mine, I still felt like I had just received a good grade in school.
An annual out of town trade show that I always work was approaching and Mom said that I should go. She wanted me to “keep living my life” and she knew how much I love my job. Arguing that I was living my life there, caring for her, was no use. I was given a few select pieces of her jewelry to wear so that Mom would be with me in Atlanta and told to go to the show. My favorite cousin agreed to fly in from Ft. Lauderdale to stay with Mom so that I didn’t have to worry that one of her companions might cancel their “shift” and not be able to stay with Mom while I was out of town.
With things seemingly going well, Friday I left for the show. For the most part the show was a blur, but everyone knew “my situation” and was incredibly supportive. Especially when the call came late Monday that Mom had to be taken to the hospital. I rushed home, on the same plane north as my aunt who decided she needed to come up from Ft. Lauderdale to spend some time with Mom. We were on the same plane out of Atlanta early Tuesday and I drove straight to the hospital from the airport with her.
I spent all of Tuesday with Mom. Her nurse friends ensured that she quickly got a private room. (Mom had, after all, been a cancer nurse in that very hospital for years and had many friends who still worked there. Everyone from the woman who mopped the floors to nurses to cafeteria workers to doctors to the volunteers at the information desk.) Family packed the room Tuesday to the point that they had to be thrown out that evening. A cot was wheeled in for me and I spent the night holding Mom’s hand, barely sleeping just in case Mom was in pain and I needed to call for assistance. She would wake up and squeeze my hand, smile, and then drift off again.
Wednesday morning several doctors and nurses managed to fit into the room where many of Mom’s sisters had joined us. Mom woke up and was incredibly clear and logical when she told her doctors to trust those of us who were making decisions on her behalf. She gave an eloquent and touching speech. We showed her photos of the hospice facility that we had arranged for her. Mom’s doctor told me that we had a few weeks or a few months, but he really couldn’t pinpoint how long the cancer would take to claim her life.
Weeks and months sounded like a blessing on one hand, yet a curse on the other. Mom was so awake and lucid that I clung to the words “a few months.” She looked so beautiful, had such a gorgeous pinkness to her cheeks, that most folks left the hospital. One of my cousins gave a tearful goodbye that broke my heart, thanking Mom for being so supportive and for always being such a shining example of how to be strong and independent, telling Mom that she would miss her desperately.
Honestly, I didn’t understand why she felt compelled to say goodbye like that when she was just going home to make dinner for her little boy. We still had months, dammit. Didn’t I hear the word months just this morning? (Yes, Cleopatra, you did hear those words. But you also heard, “Could be much quicker, we just don’t know.”)
Yet at 6 PM we moved Mom onto a stretcher and got her into the ambulance that would take her to the hospice facility we picked out. One of my aunts, also a nurse, rode with Mom while I drove my own car for the 45 minute journey. The sky was on the dark and rainy side, but not a drop fell during the drive north. A large great blue heron flew to my left, which was kind of odd considering that we were on a highway in Pennsylvania with no lake in sight. Mom loved great blues so I was comforted that we were doing the right thing by taking Mom to hospice even though it would be a bitch of a drive from my home after work every day. A long drive for who knew how long.
When we got Mom into her gorgeous new bedroom and were checking things out the rain started. A heavy downpour, complete with thunder and lightening. I asked someone to open a window because Mom had taught me to love storms, just as her dad had taught her to appreciate them. It must have been right around then that I realized Mom would be leaving me much sooner than I ever imagined. Much sooner than I was ready for. Fucking cliff, right there in front of me.
I called our huge family. Anyone who was in the Pittsburgh area rushed to us. Nurses kept giving Mom medicine as her pain did nothing except increase throughout Wednesday evening. The sounds of the rain and the fresh cool breeze were soothing as we sang to Mom, prayed with each other, talked to Mom and held her hand. I promised to make her proud.
As long as I live I will never forget the sound of my aunt’s voice when at midnight she whispered, “she’s gone.”
Interestingly enough, when I left the hospice facility around 1 AM there was not a drop of rain falling from the sky. I wanted desperately to be in the rain, to have the world cry with me, but it was as though Grandpap came in on a thunderstorm to get Mom, then left with her. At midnight. Fucking MIDNIGHT.
Way to go Mom. You did great. Way to set a magnificent example yet again, with such class, by stepping off a cliff at midnight. And forcing me to face my own cliff.
(I’m sorry I am not living up to the promise to make you proud, Mom. But I want to. I really, really do. Don’t give up on me yet. I just didn’t expect this cliff to be so high, nor this midnight so dark. I am in awe at the strength you exhibited your entire life. Because me? Not so strong. Yet I am your daughter and I will find away to get where I need to be. This blog is a start. Perhaps, like you, I just need to write a bit.)
