What We Allow To Die Within Us—A One-Day Journal of My Mother’s Passing
by Barbara Carr
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On the wall opposite her bed is a framed print of a flower-filled doorway, the entrance to  a simple white stucco villa, maybe in Spain.   I want to step into it, out of this hospital room where my mother lies dying.  I look into the glass-protected scene, seeing also the reflection of my smeared eye-makeup and half-styled hair.  I want to smell the flowers in the big clay pots, feel the cool slate beneath my feet, wipe my shoes on the roughness of the doormat.  She’s sleeping mostly, or crying out angrily at the pain.   It’s not as cold in the room as it was yesterday.  The nurses told me they turned the thermostat up on the entire floor to help warm her since her skin had been extremely cold when they bathed her this morning, before I returned.  She would like that, the fact that some broad scale change was effected just for her, like a final expression of her life’s purpose.   Someone years ago (it may have been me) nicknamed her The Sentinel.  Her guard tower was her third floor apartment where, for the last 22 of her 84 years, it was her self-appointed duty to be on the alert.  There were wrongdoers to catch.   Non-residents of her senior building ignoring ‘no trespassing’ signs to walk their big dogs.  Residents letting their cats walk in the hallways.  People parking in the wrong spaces or staying too long in the loading zone.  I, too, was under her constant scrutiny.  Why did I take so long going down the 3 floors to my car?  Who did I talk to and what did they say?  Why did I turn right instead of left when I left the parking lot?  Where was I going?    I’m seeping through the glass into the Villa courtyard.  It makes me think of all the places I never went because I had to stay close by for my mother.  My occasional weekend trips Inevitably were interrupted by the required frequent calls which connected me with, more often than not, her tearful or angry voice.  Evidently the calls, no matter what form they took, reassured her that I was still alive to take her shopping when I returned.  Always she demanded extra Days of Me, the pound of flesh in payment for the sin of my travel. She herself never learned to drive, had no real friends, considered the van that took seniors to errands and appointments beneath her. There were no other relatives to help.   The nurse is here, telling me about her grandmother, also 84, who lives in the Midwest with her dad, how when she broke her hip he had moved in with her to help, later building a wing on their farmhouse for her and buying her a golf cart for getting around to the horses and chickens, and to help in the garden.  I smile inwardly at the contrast to my mother, a well-dressed city girl from New Jersey who disliked the outdoors, animals, plants and the bugs they attracted.  I picture the Midwestern woman out in the sun, motoring through the garden, handing her son his garden tools.  I hear it as communication from the Universe.  See, it tells me, it could have been worse. She could  have broken her hip; I could have had to live with her.  But it could have been better, my mind debates, if only I had more money, lived in a big house, hired a caretaker, got her better medical care.  It could have been different, so different, if she had chosen to use her energy positively, to be more engaged in life like the golf-cart grandmother.  She could have been the CEO of something, or a talented private investigator.   A woman with a clipboard full of paperwork comes in.  She asks briskly if this is my mother, stating her name, “or what’s left of her” she quips.  Her smile turns to embarrassed silence when I quietly tell her she is dying.  We sit down.  My mother is moaning in the background.   I keep one eye on her as I cordially answer the questions. “Thanks for being so kind.  You have a good mother, she raised you right,” she says warmly as she leaves.  I sit there, stunning myself with her words, wondering if that was another cosmic message explaining the benefit of having a needy, non-nurturing mother, to help shape me into a kind person.  I would have preferred to have arrived at kindness by being appreciated and encouraged.   I recalled years before, comforting myself with the analogy of how a pearl forms in the oyster, a process of  reaction to being irritated by the sand that gets inside the shell.    “Iron-willed”, the competent female doctor called her yesterday when we spoke in the hallway of the emergency room.  Somehow I felt in those two words she recognized the inherent sacrifice of my life.  It liberated me, having a total stranger in a small amount of time comprehend what a steely little person my mother was.  I knew the doctor understood my mixed emotions, my deep sadness stirred in with equal longing for relief from a lifetime of being hampered by the looming presence of a critical parent.   Where would I be now, I leaned on the red villa door and asked, if I had spoken up to her when I was teenager? Or if I had not brought her to live near us twenty-two years ago when she was low on savings and fearful of living alone?  When was the pivotal moment when I decided to serve her yet keep my inner self  private from her intrusion? Have I fulfilled my payments to the karmic bank?   An unfamiliar sense of pride wells up in me, as if blessing my contribution as only living child.  I savor it like warm sunshine, and feel like singing it out loud.  “ I have honored my mother all these years, despite personal hardship.”   My mind replays two days ago, before the paramedics brought her to the emergency room. I had shopped at three stores to get the items on her list. As usual, I had fixed her supper.  She was upset that I had arrived later than expected.  She’d been greatly disturbed earlier that day by a neighbor who checked on her and told her she should have me take her to the hospital.  Hearing that, I was overcome with weakness and confusion, for at this point she was still refusing any medical help. Then she was angry because I had forgotten Lifesavers on her list.  She snapped at me, “ You mean I’m going to have to wait till 7:00 tomorrow night for my Lifesavers?”  The words stung me in my despair.  I left to go buy them, crying as I went down the hall, praying with the utmost sincerity for God to help us both have the strength to do what needed to be done, asking for assistance from all departed family members who loved her.  When I returned she was doubled over on her bed.  I cradled her head in my lap, leaving for just a minute to call a nurse friend for advice, then back to hold her again, when she finally said yes, she would go to the hospital.    It was hard to ask her the death question.   She had told me long ago, but I needed to know her current desire.  I did it in the emergency room, in between tests they were taking.  “I want to be cremated, “ she said.  I asked if she wanted to be in the New Jersey family plot where my sister is buried.  She said no, that would cost too much money.  “Just cremate me, “ she repeated roughly, “then I don’t care what you do with me.”  I’m sitting at her bedside now, holding her hand.  She’s crying out a lot and they’ve given her more painkiller.  No one knows how long it will be till her frail body goes wherever it goes before it becomes the ashes she requests. Then where will it go, I suddenly question. Just the thought of cremation makes me shudder and here I am in charge of my mother’s physical legacy.  I think of tv shows where ashes are cast upon the ocean or favorite wooded places.  Not an option here, I muse.  The only place my mother really liked was a good mall to shop for clothes.   I entertain myself with the image of arriving at the mall late at night and sprinkling her ashes at the edge of the parking lot, knowing of course she wouldn’t like that either.   I put my hand in my pocket and a forgotten toothpick pierces my finger, drawing blood. It makes me aware of the pain she’s experienced these two days of blood work and IV’s.   Is this the only way we’re allowed to die, poked and prodded until our body collapses in despair?  I’m thankful she’s here.  I have always feared finding her in her apartment, afraid that it would be my fault that I wasn’t there when it happened, my fault that I didn’t do better.  I’m right by her when she sits up, abruptly waking, eyes wide open. I’m thinking she might be seeing the angel of death when she looks at me piercingly and asks, ”Am I dying?”  I summon the resources for absolute truth I never could summon with her before this moment.  “Yes,” I tell her firmly, with my hand gently on her head.  She asks me if that’s why I’m here, what she’s dying of, and then falls back into her restless sleep.  I remember her years of hospital volunteering when she was independent, and want to believe the outstanding compassionate care she’s getting here is indeed a Divine thank-you for her own helping effort.    A wonderful nurse has come to check vital signs.  She stays to tenderly stroke my mother’s forehead.  Standing at the other bedside, touching the familiar hair that two days before I have cut and shampooed,  I watch the nurse in appreciation, with a twinge of guilt that a stranger’s caress might be more loving than my own.  Several times today she has monitored improvements in blood pressure and temperature, obviously pleased at the unexpected power of this tiny person.  “She’s tough,” she says before she leaves, with a heartfelt smile of approval that I wish I had a snapshot of.   She looks at me and I nod enthusiastically in agreement.       I go to the bathroom and put on lipstick.  I try to organize my purse, glancing at the villa scene, deciding it looks more like New Mexico, remembering being there decades ago.  How I loved those years of traveling, getting away from home and really feeling free.  I look back to check her state. Her breathing is more labored now.   I let myself imagine, just slightly, what it will feel like tomorrow, after she’s gone.  A different sort of cry rumbles up. It hits me that I’m crying for both of us.     It’s getting dark now.  I see my mother’s breathing change and I go out to alert the nursing station. The phone rings. I step outside the curtain.  It’s my boyfriend, getting directions to come up.   While I’m talking, three staff arrive to check on her.  The kind male nurse steps around the curtain in what seems like seconds and tells me he can no longer find a heartbeat.   As I lay down the phone, he hugs me.  They tell me they will give me time alone.     I stroke her hair.  I say prayers.  I lay my head on the side of the bed and say I’m sorry she suffered so much, I’m sorry things weren’t better between us.  I’m crying from deep within my chest.  This is new to me, seeing someone you love die firsthand.  I just sit there, wondering what I should be doing next.  I feel a wave of peace that is more than relief for the end of our respective pain.  I surprisingly identify it as newfound respect for my mother’s strength, as if all our negative history suddenly transformed into lighter, more pleasant memories. “Why don’t you cut that hair and get it out of your face and mine,” she had grumbled yesterday when I leaned over to kiss her.  I repeated the sentence in my mind several times with gleeful relief that it no longer hurt my feelings, actually felt humorous.    My boyfriend arrives to be with me.  We sit in the room until all arrangements are done. We talk in hushed tones, as if she could hear.  We well up with tears.   We smile at each other, conscious of blossoming freedom. We both have the same thought.  We want to take Mom to New Jersey, where she really wants to be.  And, we laugh out loud, I can be gone more than two days. .

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