March 31, 2006
The sister, the daughter, the son, the husband, the daughter in law, the hospice worker who was as beloved as anyone...
The blue sky was blue, the March wind was surprisingly warm and her breaths came slower and slower and slower and then, as we all knew they would, they stopped. It was morning. 10:50 am or so. A Friday. TGIF. We had laughed hard right at the end. She, my mother that is, my mother who is dead now, was breathing but there were long, long pauses and we knew that one of those pauses would be eternal...And we were sure that this pause, this long, long pause that we stood taking in, the pause that made us hold our own breath, we were sure this was it, and so we waited and watched her and then poof!!! one last breath and the tension had built up and we just all laughed really hard because again, she had defied all the odds...no one had expected her to live this long, this many days after not eating...what was it now, fifty days or more without food, yet she hung on?
Every day the nurse came and every day, she'd say, "I probably won't need to come tomorrow," but the next day she'd be there in complete amazement. "I'm going to call you "Amazing Grace" said the nurse to my mother.
For at least ten days we spoke in whispers. We whispered in the kitchen. We whispered in the dining room and above all, we whispered across the bleak terrain of my mother's deathbed...at night, during the middle of the day, whenever. "She seems quiet now." "I wish we could move her head." "I don't blame him for everything." "This can't be happening." "I can't help thinking this is all a mistake and we'll nurse her back to health." "I asked her to give me a sign."
We stood for a while and Mary Jo, the beloved hospice worker - the one who said urgently, "It's happening," - quietly left the room to make the call. The nurse who'd left only minutes ago, was back. She placed her stethoscope onto my mother's stillborn chest and listened. Nothing. She filled out the pronouncement...
I found myself in the kitchen. Out the window, a half block away, was the schoolyard filled with running, playing children on lunchbreak. In the backyard, on the clothesline in the late March sunlight, wafting in a strong warm breeze: my mother's beautifully crocheted tablecloth.
It fluttered and flapped on this dreadful and beautiful day - the death of winter and birth of spring. "Remember me," it said. "I was beautiful once and I am your muse. Remember me."
I ran outside and took pictures for the first time in ages. The hearse was parked at the curb and two burly men waited in the front seat waiting for a sign; a sign that it was time to come inside and take my mother away from us.
The blue sky was blue, the March wind was surprisingly warm and her breaths came slower and slower and slower and then, as we all knew they would, they stopped. It was morning. 10:50 am or so. A Friday. TGIF. We had laughed hard right at the end. She, my mother that is, my mother who is dead now, was breathing but there were long, long pauses and we knew that one of those pauses would be eternal...And we were sure that this pause, this long, long pause that we stood taking in, the pause that made us hold our own breath, we were sure this was it, and so we waited and watched her and then poof!!! one last breath and the tension had built up and we just all laughed really hard because again, she had defied all the odds...no one had expected her to live this long, this many days after not eating...what was it now, fifty days or more without food, yet she hung on?
Every day the nurse came and every day, she'd say, "I probably won't need to come tomorrow," but the next day she'd be there in complete amazement. "I'm going to call you "Amazing Grace" said the nurse to my mother.
For at least ten days we spoke in whispers. We whispered in the kitchen. We whispered in the dining room and above all, we whispered across the bleak terrain of my mother's deathbed...at night, during the middle of the day, whenever. "She seems quiet now." "I wish we could move her head." "I don't blame him for everything." "This can't be happening." "I can't help thinking this is all a mistake and we'll nurse her back to health." "I asked her to give me a sign."
We stood for a while and Mary Jo, the beloved hospice worker - the one who said urgently, "It's happening," - quietly left the room to make the call. The nurse who'd left only minutes ago, was back. She placed her stethoscope onto my mother's stillborn chest and listened. Nothing. She filled out the pronouncement...
I found myself in the kitchen. Out the window, a half block away, was the schoolyard filled with running, playing children on lunchbreak. In the backyard, on the clothesline in the late March sunlight, wafting in a strong warm breeze: my mother's beautifully crocheted tablecloth.
It fluttered and flapped on this dreadful and beautiful day - the death of winter and birth of spring. "Remember me," it said. "I was beautiful once and I am your muse. Remember me."
I ran outside and took pictures for the first time in ages. The hearse was parked at the curb and two burly men waited in the front seat waiting for a sign; a sign that it was time to come inside and take my mother away from us.
posted by richard at
3:12 PM
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