Expired Roses, originally uploaded by Pandora’s Box on flickr.Not too long after my last post, Miss M and I went to visit my Mom. Lubbock was hot that weekend but not like it had been most of the summer. Mom’s roses were blooming like crazy after a break in the nearly year-long drought. Mom kept up with her flower beds and her roses throughout her cancer treatment often telling me about what was blooming when we talked on the phone. During our visit we went to the movies, shopped, visited friends and attended church. Mom even cooked what was for years our traditional Sunday lunch – roast with rice and gravy. I didn’t expect that it would be the last meal my Mom would ever prepare for me. It was the first time she’d cooked for me in a long time and it was good; it tasted like home.
A couple weeks later, Labor Day weekend in fact, it became obvious that Mom’s health was rapidly declining. Her body and mind began to succumb to the spread of the cancer. Weakened and in too much pain to bear, Mom landed in the palliative care unit of Covenant Medical Center. I cannot say enough good things about the palliative care unit and its staff, and yet the first week of Mom’s hospitalization was scary for Mom and for me and for the loving friends that helped maintain a vigil that was to last almost a month as we watched for what would happen next. Mom was confused and worried she wasn’t in the right place, and until her pain was fully controlled, this remained her state of mind. But finally her body got the needed relief and coupled with reassurances from doctors, nurses, friends and me, her mind cleared and she had some good days. While she was still able, Mom even asked for continued chemo treatments and each time she asked, one of us explained again that her body had become too weak for chemo even though her will was still strong enough.
On August 23, with Hospice of Lubbock engaged (angels every one of them) and twenty-four hour care in place, I moved Mom home. The transition was difficult and while Mom never accepted the fact, I knew I was moving her home to die. All month I had been flying back and forth between my home in Dallas and my Mom’s in Lubbock – juggling the roles of daughter, mother and employee. Leaving Mom at home rather than at the hospital was the most difficult leaving I did during this time. And as I expected, her condition rapidly declined over the week. I could hardly wait to make it back home on Friday night, this time finally bringing Miss M with me to see her Nana one last time. I knew Mom had become unresponsive on Thursday. I was sad and a little relieved to recognize the shallow, heaving breathing I remembered from when my Dad died. I knew she wouldn’t acknowledge me, and I knew that was okay.
I expected that Mom wouldn’t last the weekend if she even lasted the night. It gave me solace to take over the administration of the medicines keeping Mom comfortable. Doing this last service to the body that had given life to my own just felt right. Around 4:00 a.m. Saturday morning on October 1, 2011, Mom stopped breathing. She died quietly and without a hint of the fight she had shown so much of up until that point. The tiny shell that had been my vibrant mom became still in the dark of the morning; I woke the household and began making phone calls.
Pandora's Box 