This is Chapter 4 in the Grief Memoir. Catch up with previous chapters here.
A few weeks after leaving my parents at the holidays, I was talking to them, just a regular catch-up, when my dad casually mentioned that mom had fallen multiple times. She was having trouble walking. She’d stand up and immediately fall. It’d been going on for days. They’d gone to the ER as one time they were worried she’d hit her head.
I remember being on Zoom with my group caregiving session that evening and mentioning how nonchalant my parents were about this. One of the leaders from the group gently nudged me that this was as serious as I was thinking it was. Mom had another MRI and an appointment with a radiologist days later. In just a few days, she was struggling to stand up.
I joined the phone call with the doctor where he told us all the worst news. The cancer was growing everywhere along the spine. And not in small numbers, large numbers. There was nothing to do. He told us that it was time for hospice.
I remember telling my manager that I had to fly home to Phoenix. She replied, “Go, get on the plane now. Stop working, we’ve got this.”
I took the next flight home, again alone. I landed late that evening and went straight to bed, just saying goodnight to my dad as mom was already asleep. I was awoken the next morning with my dad calling for help from downstairs. My mom had rolled to the foot of the bed, she got so wrapped up in the sheets that I could barely make out her face poking out from the comforter. I untangled her and helped her move back on her bed to sit. She had somehow lost even more weight since I’d been there last. Mom could barely move herself and we quickly got some supplies to help move her around – a folding wheelchair and walker from Walgreens. I watched YouTube videos on how to pick up an adult safely to prepare for whatever came next.
Even though I had been preparing for this for months, I was truly not ready to go from child to caretaker.
For my entire life, my mom had cared for me. She had been there when I was sick or hurt. She cleaned my house (sometimes to my chagrin). She cooked my favorite meals and she let me take breaks. Now it was my turn to do everything for her. It hit me like a ton of bricks, but I also just knew that I had to do it. We all had to do everything for her to make her final days easy for her.
Hospice came by to get everything set up. They brought us supplies and information on what to do to keep Mom comfortable and how to get help when we needed it. A nurse would come by during the week to help check in on her, give us more supplies, give her a bath, and help with other medical issues as they arose.
We called family so that everyone could talk to each other. Friends came by to see her and brought food for us, that mostly my dad and I ate. Mom wasn’t very hungry. She really wanted her mom’s beef stew which I made for her, but she could barely eat. Her appetite quickly went from low to nonexistent.
After a day or so, my dad and I decided to hire a caregiver who came recommended through palliative care. She came by once a day to help. We wanted her to help move Mom around, but as Mom was doing less and less, the caregiver just sat with her after moving Mom in her bed or giving her a quick sponge bath.
I found myself wanting to be by mom’s side every moment that I could but finally the caregiver told me to take a break, she had this. And so, I let myself leave my mom’s room. I ate dinner at the table, I did some yoga, or I called home to talk to the kids. It was time that I didn’t know I needed, but it was incredibly important to take a break.
Within days, Mom slept more than anything. She spoke very few words when she was awake. Fortunately, she wasn’t in pain, but it was clear, her body was giving in. James flew out with the kids and in one of my mom’s final lucid moments, she saw our girls in her room.
My in-laws drove over from Texas and took the girls on trips to museums or just to their RV while my dad, James, and I planned Mom’s funeral. We picked out a spot at the cemetery, we met with a funeral home, and I called a priest. We didn’t know when she would die but we knew that it was coming. And fast.
After one of those days of planning, we decided to get takeout from my dad’s favorite restaurant. The girls had spent the day with my in-laws, so it was just us adults. Dad and James drove to the restaurant to pick up dinner. I laid next to my mom talking to her a bit. Even though she wasn’t talking back, I was soaking in my time with her. I had told her all sorts of things over the last few days while she lay there sleeping, some stories of favorite memories together and some dreams for the future. I could see and hear her breathing slowing down. I texted James to get back quickly. I lay next to her and watched her take her last breath, slipping away peacefully in her bed.