2 Years Ago Today I Got The Call...from the Hospice Team at the Nursing Home.
background: My mom had had a stroke 6 months before in September. It was now 3 months before I last saw last in December. I saw her in the Nursing Home in December. She had been in rehab since September and she was reportedly doing well enough, so I was waiting for December to see her. I was there for the whole month of December to see her,...and as she deteriorated I was devastated to realize this was it: The End for her, my mother. Everyone said she rebounded after I came on the scene. We had not seen each other for a little over 2 years. I knew from my own experience that it was a rebound only because my presence temporarily changed the dynamics. { Plus I'm an energetic and awesome person to have around (
) } It was definitely going to be a last meeting. I come back to the West Coast. (A childhood friend who is out here with me had his mom in the very same place passing on at same time. what are the odds of that? we were all like family growing up...dysfunctional and loving)
So two years ago today I get the call as I was preparing to go back for another month...it was now 6 months after what doctors call an 'event'
"People who are passing on sometimes cannot let go when they perceive unfinished business with people not present." - Hospice Staff - I was asked to get on the phone...and ask my mom to let go. I did. I told her I loved her. I told her everything was okay. I told her about a conversation I had with my younger brother as he lay dying on his death bed, a younger brother who had passed away 8 years before. All this after I had prepared everyone for me passing on first. I am one of the people we all read about who have faced death and walked out the other side. How ironic? Nothing was lost on me. Been there and back.
I have never been asked before or since then, to do something so painful in my whole life. Hopefully I never will be, but I have resigned myself to probably having to do so again. I'm one of those people. Yet, I would do it again if it meant helping to ease the pain and/or fear of somebody else I loved. I have a friend in Boston who is on dialysis and who has gone off the radar. I called his caregivers and it ain't good. The more things change the more they remain the same.
Life is never really easy. But life is all we have. Celebrate it.
Dante
dD
background: My mom had had a stroke 6 months before in September. It was now 3 months before I last saw last in December. I saw her in the Nursing Home in December. She had been in rehab since September and she was reportedly doing well enough, so I was waiting for December to see her. I was there for the whole month of December to see her,...and as she deteriorated I was devastated to realize this was it: The End for her, my mother. Everyone said she rebounded after I came on the scene. We had not seen each other for a little over 2 years. I knew from my own experience that it was a rebound only because my presence temporarily changed the dynamics. { Plus I'm an energetic and awesome person to have around (
) } It was definitely going to be a last meeting. I come back to the West Coast. (A childhood friend who is out here with me had his mom in the very same place passing on at same time. what are the odds of that? we were all like family growing up...dysfunctional and loving)So two years ago today I get the call as I was preparing to go back for another month...it was now 6 months after what doctors call an 'event'
"People who are passing on sometimes cannot let go when they perceive unfinished business with people not present." - Hospice Staff - I was asked to get on the phone...and ask my mom to let go. I did. I told her I loved her. I told her everything was okay. I told her about a conversation I had with my younger brother as he lay dying on his death bed, a younger brother who had passed away 8 years before. All this after I had prepared everyone for me passing on first. I am one of the people we all read about who have faced death and walked out the other side. How ironic? Nothing was lost on me. Been there and back.
I have never been asked before or since then, to do something so painful in my whole life. Hopefully I never will be, but I have resigned myself to probably having to do so again. I'm one of those people. Yet, I would do it again if it meant helping to ease the pain and/or fear of somebody else I loved. I have a friend in Boston who is on dialysis and who has gone off the radar. I called his caregivers and it ain't good. The more things change the more they remain the same.
Life is never really easy. But life is all we have. Celebrate it.
Dante
dD
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