So much has happened since the last time I posted.
I lost my mother in July of 2021. We were in the process of remodeling when my mother passed and it was the weekend of my mother's memorial service that our home sold. The first showing was the day we left for the service, and it was sold before we returned.
I lost a year of my life to grief. I feel like my mind has been in a fog that I am only now coming out of. We split the year between our moving and final destination switching between my dad and my in-laws. I remember it all but it feels like a dream, another lifetime. That year was supposed to be a time to spend with family but instead, I was organizing and cleaning out my mother's things.
I truly felt alone during that time. I still do. I am left with incredible guilt weighing upon me.
Several months before my mother passed away, I was stressed with all I was doing with my home to get it ready to sell. My friend insisted I join her at the beach; we settled for July 11th-17th. Come to find out, my sister had planned a trip to visit my parents that same weekend. The plan was that I would get there Thursday and leave Sunday. I told my friend, "Nothing will keep me from going to the beach."
How I wish I had never said these words.
The fateful events that set things in motion haunt me. My mother and father had the coronavirus over Christmas of 2020. My mother had a rare reaction and was admitted to the hospital with covid dementia. She refused to stay at the hospital and insisted she return home. It was a weird time. She barely remembered anything but something telling her she shouldn't stay there. She was never quite the same after that. She and my father began to remodel both bathrooms, she started to get rid of things so we wouldn't have to "clean up her junk", and insisted that we not come and visit during this time. I really couldn't due to our own remodeling. She began having pains, and stomach problems and became weaker and weaker during those months.
When she would complain, I would give suggestions. One of those suggestions included having a scope of her GI tract. I honestly thought it was stomach cancer or something. I grew increasingly frustrated because she wouldn't listen to me. I found out later at the service that she had said I was bossy. It was supposed to be a funny story but I felt anger. Perhaps this wouldn't have happened if she would have listened to me. Anyway, I had a passing thought that one day she was just going to start throwing up blood, and by then, it would be too late.
July 2021
My husband and I headed over to my parents for our visit on July 8th. On the way, the sunset was like one I had never seen before. I have pictures but they don't do it justice. I kept going on about how it looked to my husband when I just had this feeling, "You're not going to the beach."
One of the things I inherited from my mother was her intuition. I can't tell you the number of passing thoughts I've had that come to fruition. Sometimes I really hate it.
I was going to keep it to myself, but I couldn't and told my husband, "I don't think I'm going to the beach." He looked at me and asked me what I meant. I told him that I wasn't sure whether it meant that something was going to happen to me or my friend or whether something was going to happen to prevent me from going. It was just a feeling.
I know now that it should have been interpreted as "Don't go to the beach."
We arrived Thursday night, and the next day I felt so strange. Like I was walking through jello. It felt heavy. I felt like I should stay close to my mother. She was having pain, so I gave her a little massage. I showed her stretching and strengthening exercises. I can't fight the thought that maybe I had done something to cause what happened.
She took her medication. I remember looking at it and thinking, I don't think she should be taking these the way she said she takes them. My father gave her Aleve for the pain, which is terrible if you have stomach issues. I even informed them that she needed to be careful but I was brushed off and told, "It's fine". I had no idea how long or what she had been taking which I believe contributed to her issues.
She wasn't herself that entire day. My sister and I went to Walmart to look for pool toys and floats. I felt like telling her what I felt and asking if she felt anything, but I didn't.
We came back and blew up the floats. My sister took the kids out to play in the pool. My father and husband joined them, but again, I felt I needed to be close to my mom.
I went outside briefly, and my mother joined us. She sat next to me and put her head on my shoulder. I don't remember what we talked about but I do remember her saying how she didn't want to grow too old, to be put in a home.
She would say things like that. Things like "I wish the Lord would take me." "If it's my time, why doesn't he just take me?"
We went back inside and she fell asleep on the recliner. I gave her some M&M's to try and cheer her up. She got up and went to the bathroom and then came back and sat down on the couch. She was very quiet. I wonder if she felt it too but didn't know what to say or how to say it. I asked her if she was ok and she said she didn't feel good. I went outside but told her that I'd be right outside the door and to call me if she needed me.
While chatting with my sister I heard my name and walked back in to find that my mother had thrown up and that it was blood. I panicked, I didn't know what to do. I went out and tried to get my dad to come in but him being him made me say it out loud in front of everyone. I didn't want the kids to hear and get scared.
She had an ulcer that ruptured one of the walls of her stomach and a vein which is where all the blood was coming from. I called her family to let them know what was going on and to pray. I tried to be stalwart. Before she left in the ambulance she asked if she would die. I replied that I didn't know. Was that the right thing to say?
I mentioned to my dad, sister, husband, and my friend that I felt like I wasn't going to go to the beach but they told me that I should go. There was nothing that I could do if I stayed. Perhaps, I was hoping they would tell me to go, the excuse to be selfish, and ignore the prompting that told me to stay.
I spent the night with my mom at the hospital Saturday and left Sunday and before I left my mother signed to me that she loved me to the moon and back.
Needless to say, my time spent at the beach wasn't fun. I was constantly on the phone trying to get updates. It seemed things were improving. The breathing tube was removed and she could talk some. I spoke to her on the phone but it was only a hello. By Tuesday my dad felt like he could go home. They told him that they were going to try and get her up and moving the next day so he left. I mean if they were going to try and get her moving and moved from the ICU things have to be improving, right?
It was that night that things took a turn for the worse. He came back the next day and found her in a different state of mind. That night one of her medications for her blood pressure ran out and it tanked. When they finally came in to check on her, she was hard to wake up but they were able to finally rouse her. I don't know if that was the truth though. They had also been unable to get the doctor who did the surgery to respond to them because they needed him to sign off on something. I suspected they believed there was still bleeding and that was why she wasn't improving like they thought she would. Again I have no proof of what actually happened because there are no nurses' notes regarding the incident that happened that night or anything that happened when she became combative.
She was belligerent, yelling at the nurses and my dad. Accusing him of sleeping with the nurse and he became frustrated at her and yelled at her not thinking she was not in her right mind. This could also have been something called terminal agitation. When someone is at the end of their life their personalities change, and they become, well, increasingly agitated. It could also have been ICU dementia, which can also happen in older patients. I don't know.
My dad called me that day and had me talk to my mom because she was insisting she be let go so she could return home. When I spoke to her, she said, "I need you to listen, I need to go home, I need to be surrounded by the things that I love". I asked her if she could wait until I returned so I could be there to facilitate her return home and she asked why and I said that I wasn't there and wouldn't be able to come back until Saturday. Really I thought it was the same episodes she was having when she was in the hospital last time and surely if we could keep her there she would have a better chance to recover. Right?
That was the last time I spoke to my mother. She was telling me then that she wasn't long for this world and just wanted to be home but I wasn't listening. I was holding on to the hope that if she just stayed at the hospital she would get better. She had developed sepsis and they were trying to keep her temperature down and had her on antibiotics. She needed her blood pressure medications etc. If she left now, she wouldn't survive, at least that's what they were telling us.
Due to her not responding well to my father's presence, he was told that he needed to not be there. I told him it might be better if it was causing her stress. Something I regret telling him. He should have been there regardless. They gave her something called Haldol to calm her down. I don't know what that did to her.
So now my mother was alone. My sister had to return to her home. My dad was not there and I was at the stupid beach. I should have left.
Why didn't I insist that we return?
I called my uncle and aunt and they said they would fly out and stay with her. She was talking to them but she was still so out of it and saying things that they probably would never tell me.
I honestly believe she felt we abandoned her. She had no one. She would never have done that to any one of us. She would have stayed by our side. In her last waking moments on this earth, she was alone believing her family had abandoned her. I can only pray that she knew I was there in the end.
By Friday she was no longer conscious. I had been praying and fasting to know what was to happen to my mother. It was early Friday morning that I got my answer only I didn't know it or I didn't want to believe it.
She had stopped responding to the things the nurses asked her to do like squeezing their hands or opening her eyes. Since the dialysis had stopped working they put her on a kidney bypass machine but people couldn't stay with her once that happened.
My dad and I met with the hospice nurse on Sunday with my sister on speakerphone. We thought, at least what my dad told me, was that it was a meeting with the hospice nurse to discuss her going home but what it really was, was to discuss end-of-life. We had to make a decision on when to take her off the breathing machine. We decided on Monday but she had other plans. I will say though, that my mother did as I asked, she waited until I returned.
When we returned home from the meeting I realized I left my glasses there. My friend and I returned to get them. I don't believe I left there by accident.
When I arrived they told me that there was someone already up there and only 2 people were allowed. So I went up and saw that it was my mother's dear friend. We talked for a bit and I was going to let her have some alone time with my mom when I saw that there was blood pooling by my mom's mouth and called the nurse. They sent us outside and I remember listening to what the nurses were saying and I told my mom's friend that something was happening and I needed to call my dad and my sister.
I told my sister that I didn't think she was going to make it and so she got a flight to come that night. While she was at the airport on speakerphone, with me holding my mother's hand, my mother left us.
Those moments, everything about that time are etched in my brain. I don't think that I will ever not feel this tremendous guilt in my heart. The regret that I feel. The many pleas for forgiveness from her and how I hope she did not feel what I fear she felt.
I hope she knows how much I miss her. I hope she knows how much I still need her. I hope she forgives me.
I hate the guilt I feel. I hate the regret I feel. I hate that it happened. I hate that I ignored what I knew I should do. I hate this weight upon me. The weight of responsibility. I feel responsible for my dad. Months before she died she told me if she died that I needed to watch my dad. I can't say I'm doing that great of a job. Was it right that she put that on my shoulders?
The only thing I can do is rely on those moments that I know were promptings, answers, and comfort from the spirit.
How I wish I could turn back time. How I wish I could look back and not have any regrets. However, there is no magic wand. There is only moving forward and hoping to not make the same mistakes again. To be there when I am needed the most.
