My Mother’s Death 

Introduction.    9:55 a.m., Wednesday, May 30th, 2007.   “Richard, come in here”, Teri calmly, but loudly enough, so that I could hear, sitting at my computer in my room.

Teri is the homecare nurse that I hired almost a year earlier to come three times a week, for an hour each visit, to help me care for my Mother.  Then, in recent weeks, as Mother became less and less alive, Teri started coming every weekday for an hour.

I walked into my Mother’s room, where Teri was sitting on the portable pot next to the bed, holding my Mother’s hand in one hand, and the other hand resting on my Mother.  My Mother was on her back, where she would never be, excepting as Teri or I was turning her from one side to her other side.

I now remember, just prior to Teri’s call, a throaty, goggling sound.  We had heard it before, in prior days, and Teri had given me the physiological explanation of what was happening to cause the sound, and that it can occur without death, and can occur at death.  When I arrived at the foot of my Mother’s bed, Teri said, “I think she is gone”.

It came as no surprise.

My Mother had in my, perhaps, strange, unscientific, and maybe quite wrong, view, began dying on the previous Friday, when we, Teri and I, saw that she no longer was responsive to our questions and affections.  Just the day before, the day before the last Friday, we both received such responses, some responses by sound, or by hand squeezes, responses that told us that she was there, there with us.  But, this stopped on the Friday.  We also, on that Friday, saw that Mother no longer attempted either to hold on to me as I lifted her up out of bed and onto the bed side pot, or to sit on the pot without falling forward, or to the side, surely collapsing to the floor, if Teri or I, or the pot’s arm rails, had not kept her from falling.  Yes, I do believe that my Mother was partially dead, as of Friday, May 25th, and it took another five days for her to stop breathing.

As indicated above, my Mother’s death came as no surprise.  She was 98 years, and 8 months, when she died (months mean a lot when they represent such a high percentage of ones’ remaining life).  She was, as she knew, and everyone else recognized, at the end of her life.  She had come to live with me two years earlier to, you might say, die, hopefully in as much comfort, and with as much dignity, and in the best loving environment, which we could provide for her.   She knew this was her final phase, that she would not be going anywhere else, alive.

In the next several pages, I want to write of my Mother’s death, going back several months, and recollecting and remembering some of my thoughts and impressions and ideas and emotions that both I can recall, and based on notes that I jotted down during this period.

And, what I most want to write of is the mysteriousness that was present, of the great opportunities this final phase gave for experiences of love, expression of holiness, and the amazing and surprising experiences that can be present in death.

Divine Intervention.   From May of 2005, when my Mother laid, day-after-day, at the rehabilitation center, not “recovering”, not “showing signs of vitality”, not offering encouragement about her mental or physical state, to after my Mother’s death, I believe divine intervention was present.  I cannot explain, in any other way, how what was accomplished, the subsequent events, the day-by-day successes, over the next two years, and how all came out as it did, could be otherwise.

Starting with the decision to bring my Mother back to Frederick, and then to care for her for the rest of her life, the decision to move to a new, more suitable residence for care giving, and all that this move would mean, the discarding of boxes and boxes of junk, the transporting and giving to the library boxes and boxes of books, the planning of all that it would take, and in the time in which it would need to be done, arranging for all that was needed to be arranged for, while at the same time caring for my Mother, who was in great need of care, arranging for her in-house rehabilitation, arranging for a moving company, arranging for a stay at a motel for a night, even as my Mother was unable to walk and do much at all, and having to leave her in the motel with a care giver, so I could go and direct the movers, as we moved, unpacking and arranging the furniture and everything else at the new residence, arranging for homecare service providers to come to help me and provide me some relief after the move, purchasing the wheelchair, portable pot and much other support equipment, and we both, my Mother and I, adjusting to a new residence and new routines, and the new life, the doctor visits, and the day-after-day of living and caring for her, and then the episodes that she had (written about below), her staying await, unable to sleep, hyperactivity, and verbalizing, and the hallucinating, and the exploring the corners of the room, and the walls and the final days, bedridden, and then the unresponsiveness, and then the death, and then arranging the funeral and the arrangements with my Brother, and the transport to the final resting place, 1,000 miles away, where I drove her in a van, and….  much, much more.

And, with all this going about as well as it possible could, seems to me to be very miraculous, very mysterious, that it went as it did, and therefore, I do believe the presence of God, mysteriously, was somehow present, that there was Devine intervention, that good and holiness and correctness and truth and beauty and ...  was present.

 I do not think all of this could have happened otherwise.

Episodes.   My Mother started, early on in her final two-year dying phase, having, what I would refer to as “episodes”.   Mother would begin such an episode (I could usually sense that they were coming on) by increased talking (often, more like verbalizing).  She might seem more alert, early on, during an episodic period, more mentally competent, more as a younger, stronger brain and mind might be.  (Later I will refer to hyperactivity.  I think this early “alertness”, which I would sense early in the episodic period, might somehow be connected to the more intense hyperactivity that would later come out in the episode.)   By bedtime, usually she would be quite talkative, in spurts, and her talking would continue, as she lay in bed.  The verbalizing might, at first, go for a period, and then stop.  These periods might start to last longer, and the pauses between the verbalizing and talking, might shortened.  She was not able to sleep.  And, not being able to sleep was always a characteristic of the episodes, regardless of when they occurred, early or late in the two-year period.  There she was, then, lying in bed, not sleeping.  I would go to bed, and she would still be verbalizing, perhaps off and on, and then, more and more, on. 

I use the word “might” above because, as was always the case with Mother and the things she did during the final two-year period, and, however these things might be characterized, there was “change” and “growth”.  The episodes early in the two-year, final period of Mother’s life were quite different from those episodes at the end.

But, for each episode, early or late, the episodes would end by her becoming exhausted due to her lack of sleep during the night.  Often, as the sun was coming up, the next morning, she would begin  “to wear down”, to dose off, and yes, eventually to fall asleep, a sound sleep, and one that I would not wake her up from, through the day, and on into the night, until the following morning, twenty-four hours later from her first sound sleep.  And, to much great thankfulness, when she awoke, she would be "all right" – she no longer showed any of the episodic characteristics.

The verbalizations during these episodes were very interesting.  And, as strange a state as she was in, in a strange way, I felt I became more knowing of my Mother, more in contact with her basic being, her raw, deep-down feelings and emotions, through listening to her, by being with her, by caring for her during the episodes.   (I could hear well everything my Mother would say, her breathing, everything, even as I slept, due to a sound monitor system that was set up, with a receiver in her room, and speakers in my bedroom and my bathroom.)

These verbalizations, although often not quite cognitive in characteristic or seldom completing a sentence or a thought, did certainly seem to come from a mysterious part of her.  One night she started repeating over and over “Mamma, mamma, are you OK?” “Mamma, mamma, are you OK?”, on and on.   Her mother died in 1937, some 70 years prior to this concern that Mother seemed now to be showing.  She also often mentioned, or asked about, “Ethyl”.  Ethyl was the name of her sister, who died in the 1950s.

A sometimes behavior shown by Mother during these episodes, especially earlier in the two-year period, was, what I would call, a hyperactive state.  She would get out of bed.   I could not keep her in bed, when in an episode, and when hyperactive.  (Her out of bed, at night, walking around, exploring her room, was risky activity for her, activity that I was very concerned about.  Eventually, I would get bed rails, which would keep her in bed, even as she tried to get out.)  When she got up, I would get up, go to her, and put her back in bed, and returned to my bed.  Within five, ten minutes she would be up again, walking, hyperactively, walking to various points in her room and bathroom.  She explored the corners of the room, the walls, and the shower curtain in her bathroom.  Each was, somehow, something different to her than what they were. What were they to her?   Certainly, something mysterious was present.

Sometimes, during some of these explorations, she would verbalize about “crossing the street”, wanting to get to the other side.  At other times, she would say she was trying to “climb up the stairs”, wanting to go to the second floor.   Both expressions would be verbalized, more than once, during her nightly explorations, her nightly “walk-abouts”.   Usually, the “crossing the street” and “climbing the stairs” verbalizations were in connection to a visit of hers to a corner, to a wall, or to the shower curtain.  And, she would ask for help, help to cross the street, help to climb the stairs.

I came to believe, rightly or wrongly, that when she was trying to get to the other side, to get upstairs, she was trying to die.  She wanted to walk across the street to the other side, to death’s side.  She wanted to climb the stairs, to go upstairs to “death’s floor”.  She wanted to leave where she was at, she wanted to move on.

These were very strange and emotional and very much phenomenal experiences for me – to be so in touch with my Mother, while she was so in touch with a state that seemed somehow so mysterious, perhaps in touch with the other side, the upper room.  I use the word mysterious often in this narrative.

The word mysterious is a word that I often use, often think of, to describe my sense of God, to characterize God's being, God’s presence.  Whenever God seems to be present for me, something mysterious always seems to also be present.  Whenever God is discussed, contemplated, thought about, for me at least, mystery, a mysterious sense arises.  God is mysterious, for me, and his presence is always mysterious, for me.

And, it was during these episodes, these hyperactive “walk abouts”, when my Mother was in, in a truly unique state, “crossing the street”, “walking up the stairs”, I felt the presence of God in my Mother.   There was a presence in my Mother of so much vulnerability, so much weakness, so much in need of care and guidance, and, at the same time, I felt such a strong presence, such a strong “mysterious” presence of something else, of something strong.  I believe that presence was God.  I believe she was experiencing, as I was, the presence of God. 

At the end, in the last few months, her episodes became much milder, less hyperactive, than ones earlier, at the beginning of the two-year final phase.  She stopped trying to get out of bed.  And, she would generally not stay up until dawn to fall asleep, but more like two or three a.m.  

And, then in the last few weeks, she would fall into and out of sleep, as I sat next to her, holding her hand, trying to comfort her, trying to show her my love.  The verbalizations became weaker and more muted, single words.  The words were much more “faint”, softer, more lacking coherence, and understanding.

And, in the last few days, she seemed to drift into a permanent episodic state, with no response to our questions, and our expressions of concern, our requests.  Perhaps, she had finally made it across the street, up to the second floor, and now, the only thing that remained, on this side of the street, this floor, was a last few breaths.  

The Attribute of Wanting to Live.    My Mother did not want to die, even in her last days, even in that period from Friday to Wednesday, the day she did die.   Experiencing and coming in touch with some of my Mother’s inner most desires and reactions and characteristics, I became quite aware, and quite believing, of how wanting to live was a very strong attribute that she had, and is an attribute of life. 

My Mother did not want to let go, or least a very strong part of her did not want to let go.  I think this is why she might have lived so long.  She could have easily died two years earlier, when she was at the rehabilitation center, recovering from a bad fall experience, and a weakened state.  The rehabilitation center was not good for her.  She did not like being there.  It was not a nurturing environment for her, unlike, perhaps, it could be for some.   She was losing her will to live, while she lingered at the rehabilitation center, and she showed it as her strength and her weight and her mental attitude evaporated as she laid in the rehabilitation center, lonely, confused, uncertain, and out of an environment that she could understand.   But, she did not die.  She hung on.  She wanted to live despite the odds against her at the time.  It took her a couple of more years to die.  She had such a determination to live.

And, as this determination took hold, other of her life-long characteristics began to come back.  She would frequently say to me during her last 2-year dying phase that she was doing the best she could, that she was trying the hardest she could to help me, to do “well”, to be a person, living, and interacting and participating.   She badly wanted to participate, even as she was so unable to. 

I came to respect her so much for this determination, and realized how this, her attempts, in the last two years, to do the best she could, was so characteristic of her whole life, and did set her apart.  I came to love her so much more as I came to this respect and knowledge of her.  For this, I am grateful.

I loved her much, for, at 98, she would say, as she might have said twenty, thirty, forty, sixty, even 80 years earlier – I am doing the best I can.  And, she was including in this expression, the will to live.

Even on May 20th, ten days before she died, and five days before she fell into that final state of non-responsiveness to me or to Teri, when I gave to her, her comb, to comb her hair, something I had done so often in previous months, she took the comb, gripped it, and tried – tried, tried, to comb her hair, but she just could not, as hard as she tried.  The comb fell from her hand.   This was a sad moment for me, experiencing her attempts to comb her hair.  Even now, especially now, as I remember it and write of it, the moment seems so poignant.   For, it was probably, at this moment, this moment that she could no longer hold her comb, to comb her hair, that she had done so, so many times over the previous 80, and more, years, despite how hard she tried, this moment that suggested her imminent death.

My Mother had a strong desire and wish to live, to survive, to do well, and to be successful in living. What could be a greater, a more necessary characteristic?

What is this attribute – a desire to live?  Where does it come from?  We doggedly push on from inception, right through to the final few days, as in my Mother’s case, with this fierce pursuit of life, of living.  Perhaps, this attribute is stronger for some of us than for others.  Maybe this explains differences in longevity, when disease is not present.  This attribute certainly seemed strong in my Mother, and maybe this strength gives an underlying explanation for her long life.  

But can a metric be derived, or found within us, that somehow measures and finds differences in this desire to live, and a longevity correlation?  What was it about my Mother that drove her to such a determination, and to such a long life?  Rightly or wrongly, I have concluded that my Mother’s long life was indeed connected to her desire to live.

This desire to live, even in our last days, is something that as a caregiver and a fellow human being, we should recognize and appreciate and honor as being present in us. 

I have come to believe that the attribute of desiring to live is a sacred attribute, a divine attribute.  This is why we will probably never be able to find a metric, to develop a measurement that shows differences in individuals' desires to live.  As all things divine, for me, such attributes (divine attributes) are immeasurable, beyond measurement, because they are mysterious.   Mystery is the nature of God, and of the nature of living long, and of dying.   I believe that my Mother, for me, showed that God is present at dying, just as God is present at the beginning, and throughout.   God was present, present strongly, day-in and day-out, over the last two years of my Mother's life.    This was shown in so many ways in her life – in being able to love, being able to hope, being able to try, being able to seek mercy and relief and comfort, and in her desire to live.