Toward the end of 2004, my mother was diagnosed with inoperable stomach cancer. When my sister called me and told me that, I called my friend and we immediately drove home. Mom was 84 years old. I've always known that someday I would get that awful phone call saying mom was dead. However, I am greatful that I was given the opportunity to spend time with her before she died. We always think we have all of the time in the world with the people we love.
Well, I wanted her last days to be as comfortable as possible so whatever my mother wanted, I got it for her. She did not want to go in a care facility or the hospital. She wanted to stay home so I bought her an alarm bracelet and installed an alert system in the house so we could always be notified if she fell or something. I bought her medicine, eyeglasses, food and paid for her doctor visits which she could not afford on her fixed income. I consulted with her doctors from a distance to see what if anything we could do to help her through this time.
I went home on weekends and spent time with her, just talking about whatever she wanted to talk about. She had forgotten the doctor's told her she had cancer and one day a friend of mine called her and she told him we were keeping something from her. I don't know if she blocked it out intentionally or if the morphine was affecting her. I know she hated the way the morphine made her feel. See, my mother was a "controller", always had to be in charge so when the morphine made her feel "light headed", she resented that and I would have to make her take her meds to ease the pain.
We spent several nights talking about my dad before she died. When I was growing up, she would never talk about him to me no matter how often I asked. She would only say "your daddy was a good man but he was too much of a momma's boy". She didn't get along with her mother-in-law apparently.
I'm glad that before she died, she told me about dad and his side of the family. I finally understood the years I lost with him and the reason for the rift between her, daddy and my grandmother. When I went to visit her that Saturday, she said that the "spirit" told her to talk to me about my father. And so she did. It was enlightening and I became so overwhelmingly emotional, I couldn't drive back to Georgia (mom lived in SC near Charleston). Incidentally, I don't really know anybody on my father's side of the family. Momma introduced me to a couple of them when Iwas younger, but I wouldn't know them now from anybody else. My grandmother and my aunt has died so I'll never know them.
Anyway, mother died the next week after we had our long talk about daddy. I remember that several times during my visits, mother would say there was a man sitting on the foot of her bed and she didn't know him. She would just ask "who is that man sitting on my bed. Tell him to get off my bed". I believe it was the angel of death and she saw him a couple of times before she died.
As the caregiver, my eldest sister and I were named administrators of the estate. There wasn't a lot to administrate over so that wasn't too difficult (smile). No matter how hard you try to prepare, it's difficult to prepare for a death. We managed somehow to muddle through and I was so proud of my nephews as they stepped up and took care of their aunts and cousins and each other through this tough time - the way mother taught us.
Mother died March 29, 2005 and was buried the first week of April. A week after my mother's death, my niece's father-in-law died so the children lost two grandparents within a week of each other. Talk about tough.
By now, I've used up all of my savings and started falling behind with some of my creditors - but I don't regret it. Her last days were as comfortable as possible and that's all I cared about.
Four months after burying mother, I end up in a car accident. A driver decides to go around stopped traffic by passing in a "no passing zone" on the right and struck my car while I was making a left turn. The officer charges me stating I didn't yield for oncoming traffic. Doesn't matter that he wasn't suppose to be passing traffic on the right shoulder of a highway. Now, I have to spend money to get to and from work until my car gets fixed. I spend every night wishing the other driver (A. Williams) get his due!! That was his third accident that year, according to him. I bet he squeezed out of those, too. In September of the same year, I end up having emergency surgery due to gallstones. It just seemed like enough couldn't happen to me that year!
Symbol of my life - Sawyer Brown's song that said, "everybody's busy with their own situation, everybody's lost in their own little world, not really caring what their neighbor's going through".
That's where I was. You'd think things would start looking up, but they didn't. Right after mother died, my nephew, his sister and her 3 year old moved in with me. My nephew was suffering (literally) from sickle cell anemia and COPD. He could get better health care in GA than SC and my niece just wanted to move and start fresh after graduating from college. I loved having them with me. The house was "lived" in. My nephew was on two oxygen concentrators and was home all day so that increased my utilities from $70 a month to $218.00 a month.
I got to tell you though, that it was inspirational being around him. Since birth, he struggled with pain from sickle cell anemia but he never let it win. No matter what the doctors told him, he made a liar out of them. Since he was a baby they were telling us he had 6 months to a year to live. He lived to be 30. He did whatever he wanted to do. He loved the drums. He played drums like no other. He taught himself to play the guitar and the keyboard. But his first instrument, his first love, was the drum.
Yeah boy, he loved those drums. One of his greatest dreams was to march with SC State 101 Marching band. Now, he shouldn't have even tried because his hip was deteriorating and he badly needed hip surgery but it was what he wanted to do - and he did it. His mother wanted to go to the college and ask them to take him off the band and called and ask what I thought. I told her "No, let him enjoy his life. Don't let him spend his life saying I wish I had. Let him spend his life doing what he wants while he can. Just make sure he understands he'll probably end up in the hospital afterwards". He marched and yes, he ended up in the hospital afterwards - but he had no regrets. He had lived his dream.
Unfortunately, his sister found him dead in the kitchen on April 24, 2007. He was cooking and some how another his Flolan line (a life-sustaining medication given by IV) came loose. I never wanted him on Flolan. I told the doctors not to put him on it because I was afraid something would happen and it did. We don't know what happened that day. The house was filled with smoke from the pots burning, grease was on the floor from either him slipping and wasting it on himself before he fell or he spilled the grease on himself, moved away to quickly, fell and accidentally pulled his IV loose. Either way, he's gone. The kitchen had a good bit of smoke damage and the linoleum had a large burn where the pot he was holding had landed. Apparently, the bottom of the pot was extremely hot. What a day. The hardest day of my life. Worst than when mother died. See, mom was 84 years old and you know that at some point, the older they get, the closer you are to that day when you'll have to say good bye. But when they're young like this, it's hard. For a long time, I found myself slipping into a depression and I would fight my way back because I know I needed to be there for his sister.Well, we got through the funeral some how and I am gradually coming back from my depressive state.
So without a doubt - life for me ain't been no crystal stairs...
Until next time ........jes' keep on climbin'!
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