August 31, 2018

  • remembering my mom

    My mom spent the summer going back and forth to the hospital and in between at the nursing home.She'd had a gall bladder infection, fluid in her lungs, low blood pressure and her heart often went into afib, where the heart rate goes really high for a few seconds, sometimes leading to her passing out. On August 4th, a nurse at the hospital told us that she would never get better, that the pneumonia she'd had for months was getting worse and so we admitted her to hospice, which was a beautiful building with a soothing atmosphere. There, our mom seemed calmer and less frightened than she was in the hospital and for the first few days was quite lucid. On Wednesday she slept most of the day and on Thursday morning Aug, 9th, she passed away, with my sister by her side. Even as I write this, over three weeks later, I cannot stop crying. The funeral home thankfully let me write her online memorial, it was one last thing I could do for her. You can read it here:
    "my mom's memorial"
    It saddened me that she belonged to no groups or church or had any clubs or teams to root for, it struck me that she had an Eleanor Rigby sort of life. All of her pursuits were solitary. She suffered from depression and Borderline Personality Disorder her entire life and that prevented her from socializing. Though she was a control freak at home, she lacked self confidence in public.
    I wasn't sure how long I was allowed to make the online obituary, but I could've put more things about her. She loved Care Bears and lemon meringue pie. She liked the paintings of Thomas Kincade & every year I'd get her one of his calendars. She could turn cartwheels still in her 40's. She enjoyed Reese's peanut butter cups & even ate them towards the end when she didn't want anything else. She made the best potato salad in the world.
    I hope eventually that I can remember her before she got so sick. And that grocery stores stops being emotional land mines full of food she used to like. It still feels very raw to my sister and I, though I know that it will get a bit easier to bear as time goes on. But there will still be moments when grief washes over us like a tidal wave. We had a difficult and dysfunctional childhood with her, which sometimes carried over into adulthood. But even with all of that, we still loved her very much and we will miss her all the rest of our own lives.