All About My Mother Part 3

NOTE: This is part 3 of a series about the last few hours of my mom's life. To read the first part, see the posting on 7/12/08 and the second part from 8/9/08

January 9, 2008 - January 10, 2008
I think I slept about 3-4 hours the night of the 9th. It was a restless night and I didn't get much sleep. Bob and Merry both told me they stayed up with Mom. I think it was Merry who told me she and Mom sang a song from the penguin snowglobe Dad had given Mom for Christmas. I know Bob had some good moments speaking with Mom. No idea if Dad went in while I was sleeping. We kept encouraging him to go in, but I think he just couldn't deal. I drifted from her room to the office to the living room to Bob's room. Pretty numb. I found a box of things Mom had intended to give me for Christmas but wasn't well enough to mail out. There were all kinds of things in there that she thought I would like but weren't my style. We never really did see eye to eye on fashion, as I think fondly about that. There were cat pins, hair clips, clippings, gift cards and a few small Christmas decorations. I poked through the box in between the wandering from room to room and the time sitting with her.

January 10, 2008
In the morning with no thought of food or shower, I went in to be with Mom. When I was flying out to California, I had thought of a ton of questions I had wanted to ask her or find answers about. I didn't know what state she would be in, and I was hoping she would answer things. At the same time, I realized that it probably didn't matter. When I was actually there, none of that DID matter. If I didn't get answers to my childhood or how to bake this or fix that, it wasn't important. Just BEING in the moment was the most important thing I could do.

There were a few really funny and wonderful memorable moments -

Mom had lots of medicines from all the health issues over the years. And she never threw any of them away. At one point, I was looking through the rows and rows of meds that I had no clue about. I came across several expired bottles of Vicadin. I told Merry and she said her stepson said they could sell for $3 a pill on the streets. So at one point in the morning, Merry and I were sitting with Mom and told her that. I said "When this is all done, Merry and I are going to sell off your pills at the local high school." Mom, who hadn't spoken in hours said "Pay for your trip." That was so true to my mother's sense of humor. Merry and I had a good laugh with her.

Merry is my half sister. Mom gave her up for adoption when she was born. They reunited when I was in college. Later this afternoon, Merry and I found ourselves together with Mom again. I said,"Mom, there are some things I feel I should get off my chest and confess to you." I mentioned how I intentionally locked my brother out of the house when we were kids and when he would do that to me, I would have to pee so badly I would do it by the side of the house. I confessed that I tried smoking when I was roommates with Stephanie and Steve and tried it for three days. Then I asked both Merry and Mom if they had anything they'd like to confess and if Merry had been a naughty girl too. She confessed a couple of things Then Mom pointed out that she was the naughtiest of all (having had a baby "out of wedlock!"). In writing that moment down it may not seem all that funny, but it had the three of us in stitches, to the point of tears of laughter coming down.

Another sweet moment was when I was telling Mom how we all loved her so much. I started naming everybody who was at the house. I even mentioned Katu and Wiloughby as being (in their minds) the most important. She corrected me saying that they weren't, that Jesus was. She was confident in her faith, which was moving to see.

At this point, we were still giving her pain meds in about an ounce of water and that's it. Judy and Becky came in to talk with her for a bit, while the rest of us waited in the living room. The afternoon had come.