A mother brings forth a child into this world; a ‘child’ leads a mother into the next world. This is my thought as I lay next to my mother watching her die.
My mom passed away peacefully at age 97. A celebration of life but even more profound for me at the moment is the celebration and gratitude of a death; a death that we all would like when our time of departure arrives.
My mother’s time became apparent last Monday morning when she didn’t open her eyes to her loving aide Clara’s wake-up motions. “Unresponsive” was the word that shook my hands as I held my phone and heard Clara’s message.
As the cream in the middle of the oreo cookie, I’ve worked at keeping that top layer of elderly parent and bottom layer of grandchildren tightly connected to the middle. And here I was having to pick up my granddaughter from nursery and drop her off at her home before heading to mom’s house. Sitting in traffic, the cookie was starting to crumble.
I called my husband to see if he could leave court and get to mom’s house any quicker. And he did. And I breathed.
I arrived and so began what was to be the two day vigil as she was in the process of dying.
Sitting by her bedside listening and watching her breathe, the intermittent breathing as she stopped for several seconds and started again with quick and hard breaths, I was actually filled with gratitude.
Having just prayed at the Kotel in Jerusalem (the Wailing Wall ) for her to have an easy death when her time came, I couldn’t help but think of all these pieces coming together:
Having a seemingly peaceful dying process.
Her being at home in her own bed.
Her timing being so good – just having had her 97th birthday, and ‘waiting’ until I came back from Israel, having celebrated my grandson/her great-grandson’s Bar-Mitzvah .
My being with her.
For the next two nights, I went to sleep in the twin bed next to her, drifting in and out of some type of sleep mode as I heard her non-rhythmic stopping and starting of breath. I wondered how I would know when it was her last ones.
In the middle of the second night, her breathing became more crackled. Clara came in from her room and said she’s probably developed pneumonia/fluid in her lungs and it probably wouldn’t be too long. I stroked her forehead in an attempt to calm her body. The morphine sat on the dresser, syringe in place ready for that push of a couple of drops under her tongue. Her breathing softened a bit and I dozed on and off. By the morning it seemed more relaxed.
Once again timing was on my side. I decided to lay in bed a bit longer before going in for a shower. I looked over at her during a very calm cycle and saw what appeared to be bluish on her face. She looked much too calm. I quietly called to Clara who came in and said this could be it. As Clara was on one side of her bed and I on the other in bed, my mother took her last three hiccupped breaths as one arm shook. And then all went still.
I pictured an inner essence being lifted and taken from her body. After all, our body is an encasement to something deeply intangible – a soul.
If I would have thought in advance of laying by my dying mother’s bed on a death watch for a couple of days, I would’ve thought that I couldn’t do it. But as it happened, it was the most natural thing and the only place I wanted to be.
As we sometimes say, trust in the process, it will guide us. And it did. And I am so very grateful.
For this last week of ‘shiva’ (Jewish mourning ) I focused a lot on how her death. Of course her life as a huge giver and do-gooder took front and center stage as I listened to people tell their stories of Evelyn who stopped at nothing to be in service of others in all ways. But right now I feel such tremendous comfort in how her death played out. Even up to the funeral where all the pieces fell into place for it to take place six hours later, on the same day as her death. And to have a crowd of people attend at the last minute. And to have it done according to her instructions.
Tomorrow begins my real grieving as I begin to sort through her home and immerse myself, for however long it takes, in her life’s memorabilia and possessions.
Thanks for stopping by. May you find peace within your life.
(Photo taken on her birthday, Feb. 15,2015)
