The Night My Mother Died
Jan. 27th, 2006 13:54![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mapsedgeThis is probably the hardest entry I have ever written. It's long, and pretty sad in a lot of ways. You can skip this one if you like, you won't hurt my feelings. Writing is a nice place to grieve, and I'm still working out my feelings. This is all part of it.
It was the day of my mother's funeral, and it was snowing.
I like that line, a lot. It is instantly descriptive, instantly - though non-specifically - evocative. The reader, that would be you, by the way, is free to fill in any imagery that pleases. And you will be seeing it again, at least once more.
My mother's passing was not a sad affair. I'm sad for my loss, to be sure, but mother finally got what she wanted: an end to Earthly pain, and she'd had a lot of it even before marrying "Mr. Bullshit and Turnips." Loss ganged up on her in 1977, when she lost her third son to suicide and her mother to age, and again in 1984 when first her father died, then a month later her husband, then six months later her last remaining relative, the legendary Aunt Kathryn. How she was able to hold on until 2006 I'll never understand beyond pharmaceuticals.
The little funeral program had, like so many of them do, a little scripture inside. Most of the time, you get the 23rd Psalm, or the little bit from the Gospels (or was it Paul..?) that says, in effect, "From the dust of the ground the Lord formed you, and to the dust ye shall return." I brought you into this world, and I can take you back out and make another one just like you. Something like that, anyway.
Not this funeral card. From Psalm 118, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Appropriate, even in this context. At the moment I found the reference that would eventually be typed into the funeral home's boilerplate, my mother had an hour left to live, no more. It was still Friday night, but not for much longer. We'd been moved to a vacant room at the home to give us privacy, and to distance the death from mom's roommate. My sister was sitting beside her bed in a folding chair, selecting hymns she liked for the funeral. I was sitting in a recliner at the foot of the bed, thumbing a page at a time through a cheap Bible, looking for the verse whose location we could not agree on. Kathy thought it was Jesus' own words; I thought it was Psalms, on a mission to prove it. Michelle sat, also thumbing through a hymnal. We all just sort of assumed Michelle would play the music.
Kathy began to sing, quietly trying out the feel of a hymn. I don't remember the hymn though at the time the words came to me from some long ago memory, and I joined her. Kathy sang melody. Michelle sang alto. I sang tenor. We weren't some impromptu choir, laying down our books and cares and raising our faces and voices to heaven in rapturous song. Far from it. We were filling the silence, reaching for comfort wherever we could find it. Michelle kept making her notes. I kept thumbing through the Bible, never taking my eyes from the verses, singing only loud enough to blend.
The nurses told us later it was beautiful to hear. I suppose it was.
Mom's head was tilted back a little, and her thin shoulders and throat became the focus of our attention. A breath, a pause. Another breath, a longer pause. We all, privately, started counting off the seconds between breaths. The silence would stretch and stretch and stretch, then her adam's apple would work a little, and her shoulders would heave, and she'd draw one more breath.
At 12:43, now Saturday morning, there came a silence that was profoundly different, in no way that I have the language to describe. We didn't count the seconds. There was no need. Kathy, who'd been sitting on the arm of the recliner holding hands with me, rose and moved to the side of the bed. Michelle drew her legs up and hugged them - she told me later she felt my mother's spirit leave. I moved to the other side as Kathy laid her ear on mom's chest, listening for a heartbeat that wasn't there anymore. We all knew it anyway. Kathy stroked mom's hair back from her forehead, looked into her eyes. I took mom's hand for what would be the last time. Kathy turned to me and said, "She's gone."
That's it. Nothing more dramatic than that. No light opening in the sky, no dramatic final heave of the chest and final collapse, no "death rattle." She just didn't breathe again.
Michelle went to the nurses' station and gave them the t.o.d. The nurse on duty sent back the message to take our time, and we did. Over the next hour, we cried, separately and together, standing alone and holding one another, bonding in the way that shared adversity and pain will do. There was nothing left to do. When the question finally came up, "What now?" by more or less mutual decision we decided to go back home, sleep, keep our appointment with the funeral director, formalizing the order of service, the hymns, the scriptures.
Psalm 118, and Michelle's notes.
It was the day of my mother's funeral, and it was snowing.
I like that line, a lot. It is instantly descriptive, instantly - though non-specifically - evocative. The reader, that would be you, by the way, is free to fill in any imagery that pleases. And you will be seeing it again, at least once more.
My mother's passing was not a sad affair. I'm sad for my loss, to be sure, but mother finally got what she wanted: an end to Earthly pain, and she'd had a lot of it even before marrying "Mr. Bullshit and Turnips." Loss ganged up on her in 1977, when she lost her third son to suicide and her mother to age, and again in 1984 when first her father died, then a month later her husband, then six months later her last remaining relative, the legendary Aunt Kathryn. How she was able to hold on until 2006 I'll never understand beyond pharmaceuticals.
The little funeral program had, like so many of them do, a little scripture inside. Most of the time, you get the 23rd Psalm, or the little bit from the Gospels (or was it Paul..?) that says, in effect, "From the dust of the ground the Lord formed you, and to the dust ye shall return." I brought you into this world, and I can take you back out and make another one just like you. Something like that, anyway.
Not this funeral card. From Psalm 118, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Appropriate, even in this context. At the moment I found the reference that would eventually be typed into the funeral home's boilerplate, my mother had an hour left to live, no more. It was still Friday night, but not for much longer. We'd been moved to a vacant room at the home to give us privacy, and to distance the death from mom's roommate. My sister was sitting beside her bed in a folding chair, selecting hymns she liked for the funeral. I was sitting in a recliner at the foot of the bed, thumbing a page at a time through a cheap Bible, looking for the verse whose location we could not agree on. Kathy thought it was Jesus' own words; I thought it was Psalms, on a mission to prove it. Michelle sat, also thumbing through a hymnal. We all just sort of assumed Michelle would play the music.
Kathy began to sing, quietly trying out the feel of a hymn. I don't remember the hymn though at the time the words came to me from some long ago memory, and I joined her. Kathy sang melody. Michelle sang alto. I sang tenor. We weren't some impromptu choir, laying down our books and cares and raising our faces and voices to heaven in rapturous song. Far from it. We were filling the silence, reaching for comfort wherever we could find it. Michelle kept making her notes. I kept thumbing through the Bible, never taking my eyes from the verses, singing only loud enough to blend.
The nurses told us later it was beautiful to hear. I suppose it was.
Mom's head was tilted back a little, and her thin shoulders and throat became the focus of our attention. A breath, a pause. Another breath, a longer pause. We all, privately, started counting off the seconds between breaths. The silence would stretch and stretch and stretch, then her adam's apple would work a little, and her shoulders would heave, and she'd draw one more breath.
At 12:43, now Saturday morning, there came a silence that was profoundly different, in no way that I have the language to describe. We didn't count the seconds. There was no need. Kathy, who'd been sitting on the arm of the recliner holding hands with me, rose and moved to the side of the bed. Michelle drew her legs up and hugged them - she told me later she felt my mother's spirit leave. I moved to the other side as Kathy laid her ear on mom's chest, listening for a heartbeat that wasn't there anymore. We all knew it anyway. Kathy stroked mom's hair back from her forehead, looked into her eyes. I took mom's hand for what would be the last time. Kathy turned to me and said, "She's gone."
That's it. Nothing more dramatic than that. No light opening in the sky, no dramatic final heave of the chest and final collapse, no "death rattle." She just didn't breathe again.
Michelle went to the nurses' station and gave them the t.o.d. The nurse on duty sent back the message to take our time, and we did. Over the next hour, we cried, separately and together, standing alone and holding one another, bonding in the way that shared adversity and pain will do. There was nothing left to do. When the question finally came up, "What now?" by more or less mutual decision we decided to go back home, sleep, keep our appointment with the funeral director, formalizing the order of service, the hymns, the scriptures.
Psalm 118, and Michelle's notes.