Starting at the very beginning of 1998, my mother had a series of health problems, including a heart attack in June and a stroke in the first week of July. The stroke left her paralyzed on her right side, unable to do anything for herself, and unable to speak coherently. She lost her ability to do a sequence of activities, so she could not even feed herself. She could say phrases that one might say on auto-pilot....such as, "Hi, how are you?" ....but not carry on anything resembling a conversation.
When it came time for her to leave the hospital, we had a very difficult decision to make. The idea of sending her to a nursing home was truly repugnant. My Mother placed tremendous value on family life. I couldn't imagine relegating her to an institution. On the other hand, being a nurse, I knew exactly what I was in for if I took her home. It wasn't just the unending work of taking care of her 24/7 that was overwhelming. It was also the fact that my father would be hovering around, and my Dad was NOT an easy person to get along with. I knew there would be times of conflict with him.
But, I decided to live one day at a time...just looking for strength for that day, and leaving the big picture to God.
We cleaned out the dining room, brought in a hospital bed for Mom and a twin bed for Dad, and embarked on a journey without knowing how long it would be. We arranged for caregivers to come in daily to bathe her, change the bed and irrigate the catheter....not because I couldn't do it, but because it was something that someone else could do, relieving me for a couple of hours.
At first, Dad insisted he would be the "night nurse," but this wore him down. He became really irritable, and obviously needed to sleep at night. I could not be up every night, and I finally had to sit him down and insist that we hire someone at night.
At this point in my life, I had 3 grown daughters, 2 of whom were in bad marriages, although at the time, I only knew that one of them was. I already had 3 grandchildren. When September came, I resumed home-schooling our 11 year old son, and I was trying to keep up with responsibilities at church. In other words, I was exhausted and stressed. I had no time for a life of my own. I remember one day feeding Mom her lunch. I was carefully spooning in one teaspoon of tomato soup at a time and watching her slowly swallow. I was thinking, "My life is disappearing one teaspoonful of tomato soup at a time." I wasn't really feeling sorry for myself. It just seemed to be a way to visualize a truth I had to accept.
By the grace of God, this nightmare only lasted 5 months. By the time the end came, I actually wanted my Mother to die. I knew she was suffering, in spite of pain medication. I was doing everything I could to make her comfortable, but I couldn't take the agony away. During the last few days, her leg became gangrenous. First there was a black spot on her toe, then the entire toe became a ghastly blue-gray. Every time I turned her, the discoloration had crept further up the leg. When she died it was nearly to her knee. It was two days before Christmas and snowing.
I hated the thought of the funeral director packing her in a black body bag and taking her out in the cold. Such a trivial thing perhaps, but I was so comforted that the body bag was blue corduroy. Blue was her favorite color.
Many months passed before my thoughts of my Mother were of happier times. At first, I could only think of her pain and frustration, and how little I could do to alleviate it. I knew she never wanted to be dependent. I was relieved that she had gone to a place free of suffering. Eventually I began to remember all the years of fun and loving interactions....all the things about her that I appreciated. I had not been able to prevent her having to walk through that dark valley of pain, but I had not surrendered her to someone else. I had walked up to the gate of death with her, holding her hand until God grasped it. I still have moments when tears come to my eyes, and I think of those last months of her life. Then I say to myself, "Safe passage...it's OK...you gave her safe passage."
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