on Loss

Mom passed away on Wednesday, the 4th of September in the year of our Lord 2019.

I was blessed with the opportunity to be with her as she transitioned from this life to the next. She had been at Tampa General Hospital since the preceding Thursday, was admitted after having a cardiac stent placed during what should have been an unremarkable cardiac catheterization. None of her prior tests indicated anything amiss, but the cath found a 75% blockage in one of her major coronary arteries, so of course they had to do something about it.

I stayed with her that Thursday night, and again Friday night. Saturday her husband drove down and spend the night in the hospital with her. He had to leave Sunday afternoon. Sunday night I slept in the recliner next to her, spent Monday with her. Monday night was rough. She kept losing oxygenation.  She would get coughing fits, and her oxygen rate would drop to 50 or 60%, and then it would take forever to get back up to 90%. They had her on heated forced oxygen, so the oxygen was being pumped into her nostrils and into her lungs so she didn't even really have to use any effort to get it. That still wasn't enough to keep her going.

Wednesday morning she called for the surgeon because she wanted comfort care. She was tired of fighting, tired of the interventions and feeding tubes and x-rays, and couldn't go on any further.  Her final moments on this earth were spent in a hospice suite.

I'm forever grateful to have been with her in those last days and moments.  I thank God, and our angels, and our ancestors, for giving us that time together.  As I lay in the hospital bed with her, I talked to her. I told her all my silly secrets. I confessed my ugly thoughts and resentments, and forgave her for her shortcomings. I'd like to believe that she heard me, that she felt me holding her hand, and kissing her forehead. That she appreciated the petty secrets I shared with her, and shook her head at my foolishness.

A year ago I imagined what losing her would be like, and I must say I was pretty spot on. The world kept turning. People continued on with their lives. They woke up in the morning, drove to work, ate lunch, went home. Nothing changed. Yet my entire universe is slightly tilted off center.  Like when you get a new pair of glasses but the prescription isn't quite right and everything looks just a bit distorted. Things appear larger, or closer, or further away than they really are. Like seeing the world through funhouse mirrors. It's all wrong.

As long as I'm preoccupied I don't notice. Life continues, task after task. Planning ahead, making lists, crossing them out, go to work, household chores, take the dog out.

But the silent moments are deafening. The space that she took up is empty, the quiet crushing. It sits like an elephant on my chest, weighing me down, making it difficult to breath, causing my feet to drag and my shoulders to slump.

I try to keep my memories of her alive. I think of combing and braiding her hair while she was in the hospital. Her chubby little fingers, nails clubbed from chronic lack of oxygen. Her eyebrows, the fleshy mole she had underneath one. Her cheeks and sideburns. Her nose. The beetle-shaped birthmark she had on her leg. How pale and yellow her skin had become from lack of sunlight. Her funky little feet, and how they had a permanent arch to them. Her propensity for ill-fitting bras. Her sharp little smile and vicious wit.

No one will ever love me like she did.

That's something to think about - knowing that your greatest champion, the one person who had your back no matter what, is no longer here.

So now I have this loss, which feels like a solid, real thing. There really isn't any way to describe it so that others can understand. It's like depression, but sticky and adheres to everything it touches. It will always be there. There isn't a pill I can take, or alternate coping mechanism that will get me through this. She's gone.

I'm at a loss. How does one move forward from this? I've always been Princi's daughter, from day 1 that's been my identity. What am I now?