On October 18th 2015, I lost my mom. If you’ve been following along with my life,
my mom went into the hospital on March 17th 2015 and never returned
home. She went back and forth from hospital to rehabilitation to a nursing home
back to the hospital and so on.
During this time, I went to visit her multiple times
a week, and spoke to her every single day multiple times a day. There was
nothing she did not know about me. Despite my best efforts to have a positive attitude,
I decided to act like a normal person and continue on with my rants and
complain about everyday occurrences. I like to think that this normalcy made
her day “entertaining.” There
were many days when I would visit where I was able to take her outside just to
get some fresh air. On a very rare occasion, I was able to take her out of
where she was to go for a ride and get ice cream at our favorite place I then brought
her back and I went on with my day. Much like most people you never think the last
time will be the last time, but sometimes it is. You have wonderful days filled with beautiful memories
and sometimes if you’re lucky enough you have someone to capture them all. For
me I had all of that.During the last few weeks she was very sick and in Intensive
Care at a local hospital. It was at this time that we realized how sick she had
become and that her frail body would need to put up one hell of a fight. We
were told by doctors and nurses that we would need to make a choice on how to
proceed.
While the questions were coming in, we asked her what she
wanted to do and she told us that she wanted to live. Despite this we somehow
had to convince my mother (a retired nutritionist and director of school food
service) that she would need a feeding tube.
Convincing was done and the feeding tube was put in, but still more
worked was needed. Yogurt, water, and cranberry
juice were about the only things she would eat except for the occasional Popsicle.
After much determination from her and our family and close friends, the battle
seemed to be coming to an end.
Somehow, we were able to help bring her back and before I
knew it she had moved rooms and was being scheduled to leave the hospital and
go somewhere else. After transporting to Boston, she was getting better and was
acting much more like herself. She was
telling all of the nurses about her kids and was eating actual food and the
feeding tube was taken out.
Have you ever had a day where you want to remember everything about it.
The way the day feels, smells and looks. You study everything about it so that
way you can have the memory forever. That is how I felt the last time I said
goodbye.
We talked about how to fix the house up so it was a safe
place for her to come home to. She worried about how we would pay for the
hospital bills and I told her I was working with someone to figure it all out. I
brushed her teeth and I combed her hair and I brought her a sweatshirt and
helped put it on her to keep her warm. I
kissed her, told her I loved her and I studied every single beauty mark on her
face. I told her I would see her tomorrow, she told me not to come in the
morning and I said goodbye.
“There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget
them,' my mother explained shortly before she left me. 'If you can remember me,
I will be with you always.”- Isabel Allende,
Eva Luna
