Hello from the other side

On October 18^th 2015, I lost my mom.  If you’ve been following along with my life, my mom went into the hospital on March 17^th 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