How Mom Died

On Wednesday, August 22, the Feast of the Queenship of Mary, Mom died. From about 3 AM till about 5:45 AM, Mom appeared to be sleeping peacefully and quietly. A couple of times she murmured something, and I leaned over and said, "I'm here. Is there anything I can get for you? I love you" but she didn't respond. Her breathing became slower and slower and stopped at about 5:45 AM. I listened for breathing and tried to feel her breath but could find none. I tried to find a pulse and could find none. I tried checking her blood pressure with the automated meter and both times it returned a zero reading. Her arm was listless as I moved it.

I cried and cried and kissed her and called Hospice at about 6 A.M. A nurse called back and said she'd come over. She arrived about half an hour later. When she came in she looked at Mom and said, "Yes, she's gone." She checked with her stethoscope and then told me she was dead and would take care of things.

I couldn't seem to stop crying and crying. I called my aunt and my sister and told them. And I cried and cried some more. I kept stroking my mother's beautiful white hair and kissing her beautiful peaceful face and holding her hand and caressing her arms, and I cried and cried and cried. I held her and touched her and told her I loved her until the funeral home hearse took her away at about 8. By then my nose felt raw from all the kleenex I had used, and from paper napkins, after the kleenex ran out.

I agreed to meet the funeral home persons at about 11 AM and my aunt and I agreed to go together. Meanwhile I drove over to McDonald's to get my own breakfast as usual; and got her breakfast as usual too. I brought them back and set them beside the packet of Earl Grey tea I had laid out for her 2 days before, beside the teacup she was to drink her tea from, as usual. I was wailing and crying and knew that she would never drink this tea again, that she would never have breakfast with me again, but I couldn't stop myself from fixing things just as if we were to have tea and breakfast.

I just sort of wandered through the empty house screaming and crying and using up it seemed. I talked with Aunt Edna again on the phone and went to buy some more kleenex at Drug Mart. I drove down the street going the same route Mom and I always took and will never take again; I parked and went into Drug Mart like we always did and will never do again. I bought 6 boxes of kleenex and kept seeing things that I had bought with her or talked with her about, never to do so ever ever again.

Aunt Edna and Cousin Charlotte went to the funeral home with me and we made arrangements. We bought 2 plots, one for Mom and one for me, only a few feet from the Zakharians' plot where Uncle Arthur is buried and where Aunt Edna and Cousin Rosanna expect to be buried. I frankly blubbered throughout this whole process and if Aunt Edna and Charlotte hadn't been there, I don't think anything could have been done.

Pastor Sharon of Memorial Drive Methodist Church agreed to officiate and we arranged a graveside service for 10 AM on Monday morning.

I returned home ... and walked in the door ... and looked at her deathbed, and walked out again. I thought I'd try to go see a movie and get my mind off things. It didn't work. I sat through the previews and left just as the movie started. I was driving and blubbering going nowhere in particular when my aunt called. She asked me how I was doing. I told her I just couldn't believe it that it just can't be true and started wailing and blubbering. She listened and said she had no words to stop the pain but said she knows things will get better. she asked me what I was going to do now. I said I thought I'd go get Mom's dog and take her for a walk, like all three of us did so many times, every day we did this in the late afternoon or early evening. Aunt Edna encouraged me to do so. I went and got Spooky, her dog, and we went to Woodward Park like we so often did, but this time without Mom. We sat in the same place in the Rose Garden where all three of us sat so many times together; only this time it was only us two. I felt like I was immersed in pain but had stopped crying and Spooky and I walked and looked and I told her again and again, "It's just us now ... I know, I know, but she's gone ... "

Finally I returned home and while sitting looking at Mom's deathbed, Cousin Annette called. She wanted to pay for a really good obituary, which is something that had come up earlier in the day, and something I really wanted to do. So I spent the rest of the evening, almost happy and certainly grateful, writing up a draft of Mom's obit.

I got to sleep about 11 PM and dozed till 3 AM when I got up and started working on the obit again. And I started looking through her pictures. Amazing pictures, what an amazing woman and what an amazing life. I wasn't crying so much now, although every now and then the tears and wailing would start again; but stopped after a few minutes. I know I need a photo for the obit, but also thought many of these could be part of a display or retrospective for the reception after the funeral. I think that's something I would like to do.

Frankly now, a day after she has died, nothing really seems real at all. I keep seeing things and wonder why they exist or why I exist or what the fucking point of anything is. I know God is here present with me - I have been bending His ear and asking why she's gone and why in the world anything at all anywhere should exist if she's not in this world. I know at some point I'll feel differently but don't know why I should feel differently.

Yet I am really so very very very very very grateful for my Mom. The past year especially, the time when her health was declining so fast, and the past 6 months of full-time caregiving, and the past few nights of being with her while she was dying ... all this to me was truly the hardest thing by far I've ever been through in my life. But I would not trade a single second of it for a fortune. I am so grateful for her; and grudgingly but sincerely admit that her Creator deserves my deepest gratitude not only for Mom, but for granting me the privilege of being with her during this time, and especially the wonderful gift of being with her as she died. I know she wanted this with all her heart, to be allowed to die at home with her son, and am more grateful than I can begin to say that God's Providence arranged things so.

Requiescat in pace, my dearest Mother ... but O OOOOOO why did you have to go????