On August 15th @ 11:47pm my mom took her last breath and passed two days shy of her 91st birthday. You only get one mother, so this is the First, and last time, that I will experience her death. My younger siblings, Greg and Lynn were at her bedside with me when she passed at @ the Lion’s Gate Continuing Care facility. I had placed her there a week prior for respite care while my wife and I took a vacation with our kids and grandchildren at the Jersey Shore. I was scheduled to bring her back home the following day. My wife and I were the chief caregiver for my mom for the past eighteen years, after my father had passed. I was with my father on his death bed when I promised that I’d take care of mom when he passed. to alleviate his concern. She led a good life with grandkids and then great grandchildren all around. She started getting forgetful, then was diagnosed with dementia for the last number of years. She progressed to hospice care in our home for the last year and a half as she slowly declined over time. It was a roller-coaster ride. Some good days. Some very strange days of hearing voices that weren’t there. Lately the good days started to fade.
The last night of my vacation I awoke from a vivid dream of my mom constantly knocking at a door I was behind, with me saying I’ll be right there. I woke up when she put her hands through the door, like a ghost, to walk in. I jumped up to look at the time – it was 11:47pm. I told my wife in the morning, thinking that my mom had possibly passed. My brother who had slept at Lion’s Gate the last four nights had called me that night to tell me that she had declined drastically over the week, and he was afraid that she may not make it until I returned the next day. He said that she had seemed to be holding on for something. He thought it could be me. He put me on speaker phone and let me speak to her. I told her I loved her and assured her. My mom and I had spoken weeks before where she had told me as her quality of life was declining that she lived a good life and was ready to go. I hung up not knowing if I’d see her alive again.
The next morning, I drove to the facility to find her still fighting to stay alive. She was gaunt and pale. Her breathing was labored, but still there. Her heartbeat was 28 and her blood pressure very low. She had been reduced to skin and bones, not having ate the last three days. She weighed under seventy pounds. She had been in pain all her life from multiple car accidents. Knees, back, shoulders – they all ached. She had been on a fentanyl patch for years to assist in managing the pain. The nurses were now coming in every hour with a dose of morphine to squeeze in her mouth to keep her as comfortable as possible. It was difficult seeing her in pain and struggling. She was non-verbal and non-responsive at this point. Each hour went by in minutes. At 11pm her breathing became very shallow. My sister, who is a nurse, who has much experience with end of life, said that she is getting close. The tears were interspersed with laughter from funny stories we told of my mom from over the years. Through it all we kept talking to her professing our love and assuring her that it was ok to let go. We told her that dad was waiting for her.
I then told my siblings at 11:15pm about the dream from the night before. As time slowly proceeded to the 11:47pm time that I mentioned from the dream, they started to comment that maybe this could be mom’s last statement to us. All her life she claimed to be psychic. She always had “feelings” about things about to happen. She held meetings in her youth with a Ouija Board with her friends. They claimed she was correct in predicting things in their life. I never believed. But who really knows?
With her breathing becoming almost non-existent, my brother had placed his hand on her neck to feel her pulse. At 11:47pm my brother turned and looked at me – her pulse had stopped. She stopped breathing. She had passed at the exact time that I was awoken from my dream about her the night before. Was this mom having the last word so to speak? She was tough and fought until the very end, but it was time. She was in so much pain. She had lived a great life and was ready to go.
When I had my First and only video interview of my mom in 2020 for my book, I asked her… “What three words best describe the person you have tried to be in life, and how do you want to be remembered?” Her reply was … “Love, Happiness and Grateful.” She succeeded and I will remember her this way. She had spent time in the last number of weeks being visited by all of her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, nieces, and brother – who had come to say their goodbyes.
Another question I had asked my mom in that interview from 2020 was … “What message would you like to share with your family?” Her response was… “Life is short, live it!” I’m going to take my mother’s advice. I hope you join me. I’m grateful for every day as I Live it. Grateful for every FIRST I am able to experience, not only the positive cheerful ones, but the sad ones. Even death. It is part of life.