Eye Candy Friday-9/29/06
Today’s Eye Candy will be candy of the Mind’s Eye. And I promise I will get to it, eventually.
On Monday morning, my mother woke in great agony and with much hysterical agitation. The nurse told me that we probably only had a couple days left with her and to find everyone and tell them they needed to give her permission to go. It came as quite a shock, as she had seemed-apart from the fact that she was dying-more or less okay the day before. Over the last few days her pain became worse and worse and it required more and more drugs to subdue her. And I do mean subdue her because even the incredible amounts of morphine were not relieving her pain, they were only making her sleep.
On Wednesday afternoon she woke up to tell me, “I’m dying, honey.” I said, “I know, Mom, I’m so sorry. It’s the only way to get rid of this pain.” When I thought she was sleeping, I began to silently cry for her suffering. She opened her eyes wide and said “Help me up! Help me up!” So we held each other and cried for awhile. I told her how much I loved her and how sorry I was about not being able to do anything to make her feel better. She told me not to be sorry, never sorry. I then said, “Well then I suppose I will be happy for having such a wonderful, loving mother.” I went on to thank her for all that she gave me, and then I described how I pictured her heaven. She told me, “I love you SO much.”
On Wednesday night, she woke in agonies of pain and she told me, “Ohhhh SHIT! I just want to get this over with.” I told her it was ok to let go.
I was describing my own agony at her suffering to La and how I wished I could hold her hand all the way to the door. La described a way to do so, and told me how to include her so she could also help Mom on the way. Thursday she was a little closer, and in much more pain. Her nurse said that she didn’t understand why Mom was fighting it so hard and couldn’t seem to let go. I said, “I don’t know, but life has never been easy for her, she has struggled so hard for everything. She doesn’t know how NOT to struggle, so I suppose she is dying the way she lived.” Later that night, she woke in a panic because she was struggling to breathe. I hit the morphine button on the pump every 6 minutes for an hour. When I finally laid her down I said, “Mom, I’m sorry. I’m doing all I can. I wish I could make it not hurt.” She said, “Oh honey, I know you are. I know you are. I know. I love you so much.” I picked up two of the stones La had sent to her and which were on her nightstand, and I put them in her hands. I hoped they would bring her peace. I left the CD with the soothing music and the birds chirping to play during the night and crawled into the bed across from her and fell asleep listening to her pained, ragged breathing.
I woke up at 5:12 this morning and automatically listened for her breathing, but it wasn’t there. She had passed peacefully in the night, without even changing her position. The stones were still in her hands. I can feel her lightness and her smile. Last night was the first night of cold weather and I just know that Mom-hating cold weather as she did-said “To hell with this, I’m out of here!”
So the Eye Candy for today is this picture I can see, imagining her heaven. She is laughing. She is walking, running, twirling around with a spring in her step and there is no pain. The place where she does this is a vast and fertile garden. She has on her plaid gardening shirt and jeans. There is a trowel in her hand and it is gleaming in the sun. It’s warm and breezy and the colors of the flowers are so vibrant. She is taking in great big breaths and letting them out slowly, inhaling the scent of her garden. She stops to pull some weeds or dead-head a plant every so often-for to her, these are not chores, but pleasures. She can bend over, kneel down and dig. And she does get sore from this, but it’s the kind of sore she likes. It is very mild and it passes as soon as she appreciates it. There is an abundance of birds and butterflies. As soon as she imagines one, it appears just to make her happy. And the changing of the seasons brings new joy to her each time. There is peace and happiness such as she never knew in corporeal form.
My mother never liked tomatoes, but I asked her to plant me some in her garden in heaven, because when I join her, I’ll have the salt shaker in my hand. I am grateful that the past three weeks she has been with me have been filled with family and laughter and good food and not just suffering. I am also grateful for all the kind energy put out by so many people on our behalf. I’m so glad that in recent years we had healed our past hurts with one another and that I could appreciate her as a person. Most of all, I am glad that she is no longer suffering. Mom didn’t want a service but she instructed us to have a great, big, drunken Irish Wake to celebrate her life and she told us that if we didn’t make it a good party she wasn’t coming.
Mom, I miss you so much. I love you. Be Free.
