(My Mom and I watching the eclipse in August)

Then and now

“Then” was last month, when my sister and I went to my Mom’s house and stayed with her, and made her oatmeal with blueberries for breakfast, and yogurt with cottage cheese for lunch. It was her house, and she was here. She was with us and part of us.

But she got sicker, and suddenly she was no longer the healthiest hospice patient around, which is how her nurse had described her  just a few weeks before.  The tumor grew, and she wore down.  One Saturday evening last month she struggled to breathe, and then her breath slowed, then stopped.

Then became now.

Now, there is just us. My Mom is gone. But her house is still there, and her clothes, her Toby mugs, her Tea Leaf china. Also, her papers. So many papers. I opened a random drawer the other day, one I’d never opened before, and found progress reports from when I had swimming lessons in second grade.

This “now” is unknown and overwhelming.

In the week’s before my Mom’s death, both my sister and I stayed with her around the clock.  Nobody got much sleep.  In this month of December, which is supposed to be full of holiday cheer, I have been exhausted, both physically and emotionally.  My little family and I celebrated Christmas- but barely. People have asked me what we are going to do with my Mom’s house, with her things. “Nothing until January,” I tell them.

January is coming.  My sister and I agreed that we would take off the rest of December. But come next week, we will go back to my Mom’s house and start figuring out what to do with all she left behind.  She had such a hard time throwing things away. I think she feared that tossing a card or letter would mean that she didn’t love the person who sent it to her. She left stacks of Christmas cards from over the years, and all the sympathy cards from my Dad’s death in 2011.  She also cherished every gift anyone ever gave her. She had a five bedroom home, and it is full.  Keeping  all this was her way of proclaiming her love.  Now, in this “now,” my sister and I have to discern the best way to distribute everything that remains.  What do we do with her things?  How do we best honor her?

I am my mother’s daughter. It is easy for me to equate possession of objects with love, even though I know better. Would she feel unloved if I don’t keep all the things she kept?  This troubles me, even though I know I can’t do it. My home is small. But I am struggling with this now, and this morning I am missing “then.”  I do not want the responsibility of sifting through all her papers, all her stuff.  I do not want to think for even a moment that she would be hurt if I throw something away. What I want is for it to be her house again, with her in it. I want to bring her a bowl of oatmeal with blueberries. To go out and get her newspapers. To watch “Let’s Make a Deal” together.  To forget about the house and stuff. To just be with her again.

My Mom passed away late in the evening November 18, 2017.

We knew it was coming; we knew it would be soon.   There is a world of difference, though, between “soon” and “now.”

My sister and I were there, and my oldest niece, and my brother-in-law. My husband and children had been there for supper and had gone home just a few minutes earlier. My niece’s husband had brought tamales and salsa and carnitas from the nearby Mexican market.  Since my niece, who is also a nurse, had been at my Mom’s for most of the day, he brought their two young daughters for a visit, and they ate quesadillas and danced joyfully around the house until it was time for them to go.

I was full of my favorite foods, and tired, and happy that I had been out on a walk that afternoon. The sky had been clear, the air fresh, and it was a treat to be outside.  Here is how the light looked that day:

 I had just settled back into the recliner and pulled out my O Magazine when my Mom’s breathing changed.

My niece noticed first.  Maybe it was her nursing training. We were so grateful for her medical training. She got up from her chair and listened to my Mom’s breath. There had been pauses, a sort of apnea, in her breathing during the preceding days. My Mom would take a deep breath, and the next one would be a few seconds behind.  I would worry that it was the end, that her breaths had finally run out. But after a few seconds, the next one would appear. Reliable. Steady. Like it always had been. This was different, though.  These breaths were quick and shallow and seemed to stay in her mouth.  I remembered later that the hospice booklet said that at the end, many people have “fish out of water breathing.” My sister and I held my Mom’s hands. There were a few more breaths like this.  Then she stopped. Nothing. Just quiet.

My Mom died at 7:45 pm in the evening. Her death certificate reads 10:24 pm, though, because that’s when the hospice nurse arrived and made the official pronouncement. In the hours between, we sat in the family room with my Mom and tried to take it all in. We made phone calls and sent text messages out to people who needed to know. The mortuary men arrived around midnight.

Last Saturday, three weeks after she died, we had my Mom’s memorial service at the church where she attended for nearly fifty years.  Today, the Tuesday after that service, I am back at home writing at my kitchen table. I went to Costco yesterday and got the tires rotated.  I fixed dinner last night, and packed lunches for my kids to take to school. My daughter has been prepping for her final exams this week. It is almost Christmas break.  All of us have been eating and drinking and breathing for three weeks since my Mom took her last breaths.  Somehow, I am still here and part of this beautiful world.  My Mom is not.  I miss her so much.