Fifteen Years Ago Today...

...The Beginning Of The End


This day 15 years ago, Mama went into the hospital.  I remember it vividly even now.  It was a Tuesday, cool and very autumn-y.  I worked that day and then went to an appointment after work, returning home a little after 6 pm.  It was still daylight and I remember the maple leaves were so brightly colored that I stopped before I went into the house to pick up a handful from under the tree where they had fallen.  I was watching a lot of Martha Stewart back then because the TV station I worked at aired her show, and she had just done a segment about preserving leaves and using them in decorative projects, and I was going to preserve them to frame as wall art.

When I got inside the house I checked the answering machine.  I heard Dad's voice saying that he had taken Mama to the hospital that afternoon and that she had been admitted.  My pager had never gone off during the day and I remember being annoyed that he had not paged me, and that hours had gone by without me knowing Mama was in the hospital.  I was also very scared.  Mama's COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, usually emphysema or chronic bronchitis, or both) had been getting steadily worse that year.  In fact, the appointment I had been to that afternoon after work was to see my therapist, an insightful woman I had been seeing for months in part due to Mama's worsening condition and my emotional issues stemming from my fears that she was dying.  There were other issues that spurred me to seek counseling, private things that I won't discuss here.  (As wide-open as I am and as transparent as I've been with this blog, even I have limits, and some things don't need to be rehashed for public consumption.)  We had just gotten Mom-In-Law out of that same hospital where she had been for colon cancer surgery, and I had been in there a few months before that, in May, because I had fallen and broken my leg and both sides of my ankle and needed emergency surgery to repair the damage.  It felt like, by the end of 1997, I and my family, either as patients or caregivers, had spent half the year inside those walls.

I had a minor meltdown in my kitchen, railing at God in anger, crying out in fear and desperation.  Then I rushed to pack a bag so I could get to the hospital to spend the night with Mama.  That first night was rough for her, and for me.  She was agitated and the Ativan administered upset her stomach but didn't do much to calm her nerves.  That day and night were the beginning of the end of a lot of things, for all of us.

She was in the hospital for several weeks, released for about a week and then had to return for the final time.  I was writing a lot then, as I had been doing throughout that year, because my emotions were overwhelming and needed to come out in some way.  Journaling, LOTS of bad poetry, stream of consciousness, whatever came from my heart to my pen to the page to help me survive.  My spiritual life and my relationship with God were at an all-time low, due to my own stubbornness and bad choices, and the time I spent with Mama in the hospital was the first time in forever that I had actually wanted to do the right thing.  There is an old saying about when we feel like God is far away, He's not the one who moved.  That's where I was.  But He never left me, and looking back, I can see so many times when He was so close, His heart breaking with mine as I watched Mama get sicker.  He sent a nurse to comfort me on Mama's last day, one whose name and face I cannot recall, but I remember the feeling of her arm around my shoulder, her voice telling me that I could talk to Mama and hold her hand and pet her if I wanted, that nothing was bothering her now and she didn't believe Mama was in any pain.  I know now that Mama was actively dying.  I think that nurse might have been an angel, because I don't remember seeing her before that day.  He sent lots of comfort to us during our time in the hospital, comfort I needed but felt like I didn't deserve.  I am so thankful that God loved me in spite of my failures, and that He still does.  

I'll probably share more about this in the weeks to come, but for now I think this is about all you and I can stand!  Mama and God are together in Heaven, and I have learned to live my life without her physical presence in it.  She is always with me, in my heart, my memories and my family who also loved her so very much.  "It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."