Final Update About Mom

Well... hello again.

This'll be the last update about mom on this blog. Yesterday around 1:25 pm mom breathed her last and took her long-awaited opportunity to go to heaven. I spent the morning from 9am to a little after noon with her. I turned on a worship music mix that one of my sisters had put together for her. I asked her if she liked it and she raised her eyebrows and smiled. About 8am she'd been given some pain medicine to open up her airways. She had her own bed brought in last week. So, I lay there with her hoping she'd have another clear and lucid moment so we could talk. there were moments where she came around and had that "why am i here" kind of look. In those moments I'd rub her arm and tell her I was there and that I loved her. A handful of times she tried to say, "I love you too" but only wound up being able to mouth the words. I couldn't tell if it was the effects of the pain meds or if she was really that close to the end.

She had one moment where she spoke completely clearly. I cant recall what question I asked her, but in her normal, completely clear alert and personable voice she said, "Yeah." Beyond that, it was mostly smiles and raised eyebrows and at one point she took my hand---just like her to tease me that way ;o) I miss her already.

Around noon-ish, I let her know I was leaving to pick up my uncle (her brother) so he could spend a little time with her. When I left I expected she'd be around a few more days at least. I was contemplating posting to this blog that the time was really close, and people who wanted to say goodbye should come. Little did I know....

I got back with my uncle around 1:15pm we went in and I was shocked by how much her condition had deteriorated in just that short period. I talked with the speech therapist (who was too long winded, or maybe I was just feeling more of the urgency than he was) then called the nurse. When the nurse got in the room, she was going to give mom an IV. Just about then my wife showed up with our baby daughter. When she walked in the nurse left off her plan for the IV and began assessing mom. They told me I needed to start calling people. I stepped in the hall to make a call, and my wife rushed out to tell me I needed to be back in there and she would make the calls.

I got back to mom's bed and lay down beside her just in time. I took her hand and was stroking her hair when her heart heart officially stopped beating.  I was able to tell her I loved her and then sing worship songs over her for the period of time that the brain still functions after the heart stops. While I was singing I had this moment---brief but potent---where I felt like mom wasn't in her body anymore and I felt her sincere approval of my singing over her and then she was gone. May sound crazy, but it happened.

In very short order nearly all the local family was there. There was much crying and hugging and laughing and crying again. We decided to get together and have dinner and hang out together. We decided on Mexican food. Mom paid. One of her grandkids said, "So... Grandma's buying us dinner from the afterlife?" and I said, "Yep." I thought that specific phrasing would have cracked mom up.

We ordered food and everyone left. I stuck around and waited for the mortuary to arrive. In a comical twist (I think the proper term would be morbidly-comical) I had to (well... offered to) help get mom wrapped up and on the mortuary's gurney. The guy was struggling. So I offered. I said, "I've helped her in all kinds of crazy situations... why not this one too." He wheeled her away and I stayed in the room a while letting it all sink in.

We (all the local family) eventually met up at my sister's house on the property where mom lived and spent the evening together. We talked, cried, ate, joked, and sang.... boy did we ever sing. Mom would have approved. One of my sister suggested we cap off the singing with Amazing Grace. One of my nephews played guitar and the rest of us sang.... That had to be the longest most enjoyable---and probably only---rendition of Amazing Grace/Hava Nagila ever. For those who don't know, Hava Nagila is a Jewish wedding song. Hava Nagila literally means "Let us rejoice!"

How utterly fitting.