Chattering-Magpie-blog
The long way home.
My mother’s ashes were distributed and interred months ago. We finally have her memorial marker in place, between the stones for her parents and her sister (still living).
I selected the rose because her mother Gladys, has gladiolus and her sister Violet has violets. I don’t know that my mother had a favorite flower, but I think she liked roses.
The ace of spade represents her nearly lifelong passion for the game of bridge. When we were sitting at the Granite Works, trying to figure out what to put on the marker, I remembered one of my friends plays bridge. I called her on the cell and was lucky enough to catch her so I could ask how best to commemorate a bridge player.
I don’t really know whether Mom would appreciate having a memorial marker. I know she would have said to not do it and it would probably make her angry to know that I did it anyway. But I didn’t do it for her. I did it for those of us who are still here, who thought it would be a shame for her to just vanish without something to say she was on this earth.
I would hope that she would be secretly pleased, but I can never know.
Chattering-Magpie-blog
You're dead and I can't help it.
Another dream of my mother. This time she is up and about, doing household chores. She looks good, really. My Aunt Vi is there, too.
I finally have to tell her, there’s nothing I could have done to have kept her from dying.
This makes Mom angry. She takes it to mean that I wanted her to die. Vi tries to defend me which only makes Mom angrier and she orders Vi out of the room.
Nothing is changed in my dreams. It’s the same patterns as in life.
Chattering-Magpie-blog
Back from the dead.
Last night I dreamt of my mother. I went to see her and she was laying in her bed, eyes closed. She woke up and I told her she died last August, which confused her. She didn’t know that happened. I had to explain it to her.
Weird.
Chattering-Magpie-blog
Requiescat in Pace.
We laid my mother to rest, metaphorically at least, this Saturday.
She always told me she did not want a funeral. She wanted to be cremated and told me to just throw the ashes in the garbage. As usual, I did what I thought was right, not what she told me to do. I’m not quite sure whether she secretly would have wanted a memorial service despite insisting she didn’t. She’s the sort of person who would say one thing while wanting another.
We met with the pastor Friday to discuss the order of the service and to provide suitable anecdotes for the eulogy. I had to call my brother to see whether he was joining us. He said he hadn’t planned on it and asked whether he needed to. Nice. His own mother. When he did make it in, he offered the excuse that it wasn’t on his agenda. I didn’t ask the obvious question: why the hell not?
The service was held at the First United Methodist Church in our hometown. About 50 people showed up, which is a pretty good turnout for someone who hadn’t lived there for over 20 years and rarely visited. Mom still had a lot of friends and other people to remember her.
My cousins Carol and Susie each made an arrangement, and my Uncle Bill’s family sent an arrangement, as did Mom’s cousin Virginia in Minneapolis. I had two sprays of white flowers made for each side of the altar.
We sang the hymns Aunt Violet had selected and listened to the pastor read from the Bible, including Ecclesiastes, to everything there is a season. It’s a very traditional passage, suitable for weddings and funerals alike. I find if very calming.
We ended singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow, to commemorate my mother’s love of Judy Garland. Actually I thought that was a bad idea, since it is a difficult song to sing. I certainly can’t sing it. But we pulled it off; Pastor has a good voice and covered for quite a few of us. Tears welled in my eyes.
Cousin Susie generously offered her house for coffee after the service. I think about 30 people came out. We had open face sandwiches: tuna salad on wheat, ham salad on orange rye, and smoked lox on orange rye. Very traditional for Astoria. E had made potato salad, Violet made jello salad, and I made fruit salad with the melons, grapes, and pineapple cousin Barb brought.
It meant a lot to me that cousin Barb drove all the way from California. She was so good to Mom when Mom was living down there and I’m sure Mom didn’t appreciate it, just as she didn’t appreciate E and me. Barb, who is naturally humble, doesn’t think she did all that much, but she did. I know it and E knows it.
After everyone had left and we had the place pretty much cleaned up, Violet, Barb, and I took the two sprays of white flowers and Mom’s ashes to the cemetery where her parents are buried. We put half the ashes between her parents and laid the flowers on their graves. The rest of the ashes will go with Barb to California and Barb will put them with her mother, my mom’s sister who passed beyond the veil some 30 years ago.
The family went out to dinner, courtesy of the estate, that night. I remember when we did that after my grandfather’s funeral. It seemed like a really good way to wrap things up, for just the family to be together. Plus no fights over the bill because the estate paid for it.
The most fun I have had in this whole business has been paying for everything out of the estate. In a way it is fitting, because my mother always wanted to be independent, to pay her own way, and not be a burden on her family. This was her final act, through me, of generosity.
Chattering-Magpie-blog
Stage of grief: Anger.
I am just in a vile mood today and it is getting worse. It’s nobody’s fault, no one has done anything bad to me. Everyone has been very solicitous and considerate.
I picked up my mother’s ashes today in a plain cardboard box. She always told me she didn’t want a funeral. She wanted to be cremated and told me to throw the ashes in the garbage. She made a great show of being practical and unsentimental. I think she looked upon that sort of consideration as weakness.
I don’t know what I’ll do with the ashes. Maybe scatter them on the roses. Maybe add them to the compost. Or perhaps bury them in the backyard next to the cats. She definitely did not want to be interred in our hometown.
We have a date and time for the memorial service, so I can proceed forward with putting death notices in the local paper. Remembrances can be made to The American Cancer Society.
Comment [2]
Chattering-Magpie-blog
77 + 1
My mother died Friday, Aug 24, one day after her 77th birthday.
It has been a roller coaster ride since this whole thing started, three years ago. She would decline, then improve, but never to her previous level. This year alone she was in the emergency room 10 times.
During the period spanning from the end of June to the first part of August, she had a seizure or seizure-like event (the doctors were reticent to call them seizures) every two or three weeks. I finally told the care facility to not send her to the hospital if she had another seizure. They are not life-threatening, it just takes her awhile to come around.
We finally put Mom on hospice a week ago. Probably should have done it earlier, but we didn’t have a terminal diagnosis. Still don’t. Not that it matters anymore. Sometimes people just die from the multiple complications of old age.
I thought she would last at least a couple months. She’s pretty resilient. But Friday she took a “turn for the worse,” as hospice put it. I asked, hours or days? Hours, the hospice nurse said.
E and I got to the care facility as quickly as we could. I called my brother Jim – it would take him another couple three hours to get there from the coast.
Mom went so quickly and quietly that we hardly noticed. Eventually we thought to ask a nurse to check on her.
Tuesday was a good day. My aunt Vi, Mom’s sister, was in town overnight to catch a morning flight to Minneapolis. I brought Vi to see Mom. It was a couple days before her birthday, so I brought a multi-colored display of roses and a colorful balloon. Vi brought a hand-crocheted throw and a blouse, and cards from Mom’s friends in Astoria.
Mom was relatively alert, if not always coherent. She was happy to see Vi and seemed to genuinely appreciate the gifts and cards and flowers. It was the last time for Vi to see her baby sister and give her a big hug.
My mother was a difficult woman. I think she harbored a lot of anger that life did not turn out exactly as she fantasized it would. But now it’s all over. I pray she is at peace, at last.
Comment [1]
Chattering-Magpie-blog
Forget happy drugs. I'll settle for not-freaking-out drugs.
I visited Mom Tuesday and it was back to the same ol’ same ol’. She was upright in her chair, jacket on, with her purse, ready to leave. We had to get out of there so we could talk. “They” are getting rid of residents “and not by discharge,” Mom said. Plus, those other two (the other two women in her room) were spies.
We rolled out and down the street. Mom asked if I had my cell phone with me. She wanted to catch the first taxi we could see. I asked her tell me what was going on and she insisted that we had to get away from there, then she would tell me everything I wanted to know.
It was pretty noisy on the street, so I rolled us into a Winchell’s for a cup of coffee. Mom didn’t want anything. I don’t know the last time she ate. I still didn’t get anything more out of her. She just wanted to leave.
The frustrating thing is there’s nothing I can say or am willing to do to set her mind at ease. Sure I could bundle her up in the car and drive, but in the end I’d have to turn right around and take her back to the care facility.
I rolled Mom back to the facility after awhile and left her angry with me because I wouldn’t help her. I reminded her she had two doctor appointments on Friday. She said it didn’t matter because she would be dead by then.
The next morning I called her doctor. Nurse called back to say that doctor increased her dosage of her anti-psychotic.
Chattering-Magpie-blog
A good day, sort of.
Mom is out of the hospital and back at the care facility. She knows me and is actually happy to see me. That one time she didn’t know who I was seems to have been just a blip.
We visited Mom Saturday since my Sunday was booked. She has eaten very little and regularly (but not always) refuses medication. Mom wanted to go for a soda, then suggested ice cream. I thought we could just find a 7-11 out walking about, but even better we found an Elmer’s. They made her a root beer float, which she loves. She ate the whole thing.
Mom continues to experience paranoid delusions, but she seems less agitated and merely anxious. Instead of saying that they are trying to kill her, she says they beat people and she thinks she’s next. They were also asking about E, what part of the hospital he works in. I told her it was okay if they ask about that, it’s not a secret.
I also told her that if they know E works in a hospital, they won’t dare to beat her. That made sense to her and actually seemed to give her a little confidence.
I’m going to keep working that angle.
Chattering-Magpie-blog
Who are you?
Friday we had an appointment to meet with my mother’s doctors to discuss her long term care and next steps. We went up to her room ahead of the meeting time. Mom was awake, lying in bed. Usually she’s been asleep when I come in, so this was a good sign.
I walk up to the bedside and say, Hi Mom.
She just looks at me and says, who are you?
Bad sign.
Throughout all that has gone before, as groggy, disoriented and confused as she has been at past times, she always recognized me.
We’ll go back today, see if she remembers us. I’ll bring along the scrapbook of her life to help jog her memory.
Chattering-Magpie-blog
Number nine.
Today we had our ninth, yes ninth, visit to the ER this year. That’s an average of just under 1.5 per month so far. Mom had just barely been out of hospital for a week.
Same story as last time: unresponsive, elevated blood pressure. All the tests (blood work, CT scan) check out okay. EKG was a little off, but not in a big way. Blood enzymes did not indicate a cardiac event.
The ER doc (same guy we had in April – good thing I keep notes) thinks she had a seizure. She was certainly acting like she had a seizure and nothing else was indicated.
I don’t know where we’ll go from here. It’s the uncertainty that gets to me. One thing for certain is we will have to be more proactive and involved in Mom’s health care, contrary to her previously stated wishes.
• Older »
