As most of you have been along for the saga of my mom, this is how I spent the day after Thanksgiving.
Around 1:30 on Friday, my mom died. That will probably please numbers of you who are always wishing evil on me, but as I type this at 8:20 after a most difficult day, I am still numb and going through the normal questions, guilt, sadness and just going through the motions.
Others have gone through this, and I went through with it with my dad, but I thought I would share what happened today.
TL and I had gone for a walk, as we needed to get out of the house and when we got back, I had to take mom out as she had fluid still in her feet and the only way that comes out is through exercise. We made it down the driveway and were coming back when we got to the mailbox she started holding me tighter, and told me she felt dizzy and thought she might pass out.
I told her to fight through it, and focus, take deep breaths, but that was not helping, and at that she passed out. I got her over to the mailbox to sit down and she was unresponsive. I could not get a pulse and she was in her last reflexive gasps.
I went to the house and told TL that mom had died, and we went down the drive way to where she was, and she was in the final body reflexes. It sounds odd but I thought she might recover yet, so TL said to get the pick up and we put her in the passenger side and took her up to the house.
I checked vitals. Pupils were unresponsive, no pulse and no breath.
It was a hell of a thing after Thanksgiving to have that surprise. I called the funeral home and they informed me that things had changed in the sheriff and the coroner would be appearing. So we waited for an hour and the sheriff told me not to worry, as the coroner would ask a few questions and she would be transported to the undertaker. They were all very nice and most helpful. The said mom looked so tiny and she is a little woman, but she looked so peaceful in the pickup. She had good color and honestly looked like she was sleeping. It was not until we helped put her into the body bag that she did look like she was dead.
We spent the next hours what all good children do in making arrangements. Lord God the things they need. Social Security which the undertaker alerts and warned us to not spend money out of the account, so much for Donald Trump's raise to geezers next year as mom's clock ran out, wedding date, and death certificates are 15 dollars a piece as everyone needs them.
The bill is 7000 dollars for a quick burial. It would be over 10,000 if she was embalmed. This was bare bones. She deserved better than being hauled to the grave in a van, but unless you are rich, you get the reality check of dying takes about all you have. I could not cremate her as she deserved better than being burned up. When I told my siblings I got silence on the cost, so I know I am the one who signed the bill to get foreclosed on as they have better things to do than pay bills as they phoned it in all these years, and stuck me with everything.
I can tell myself this was for the best. I had premonitions she probably was degrading again and her feet would probably have gone septic as her heart was not working. She got what she wanted though in she never went to a nursing home to die, and died at home here, in peace.
I have the mixed emotions in this, as I has to be hard on her in arguing with her daily to get her to move and try to get better. She fought me constantly and I was on pins and needles 24 hours a day in worrying about what she was going to pull next.
I feel guilty as all children do in being glad the suffering and burden is over. Bugsy our friend went through this in putting his mom into a home before she died. We instead did what we could and God decided it was time the clock ran out.
I am numb in the anxiety of wondering what we will do to continue on, and having to deal with siblings and others who I hope to God do not be nasty as I have enough to deal with.
I saved this woman 4 times to live. I used up most of my health for my parents. All I can think in all of this is I tried to do the right thing and the best I could. I always wonder about people dying, like when I built that mailbox holder, I never dreamed that one day my mom would die there as I held her. I never dreamed the day after Thanksgiving would have her dead and we would be burying her on a Sunday.
I was telling Maggie it feels like something is missing here. I can not feel mom here, a trace of her. It is like she vanished. It is peaceful though. I hope she is at peace, and with my sister and her dad, as she got right with Jesus before God took her.
I am holding it together in all of these emotions, only have problems when I hear other people crying when they left messages or say they loved her. I don't know when it will all hit me. I suspect that I will function as I always do and it will hit me after we bury her.
I just hope this sore throat goes away that is trying to make me Mexican flu sick again.
Chalk up one more casualty in the Spiritual wars of America. I am so tired. I will see what becomes of the blog in this upheaval, but border wars and anti christs just are nothing to real problems real people face.
What more of the details can I share, it is all a blur, just glimpses of mom sitting there and a drip of wet on the tip of her nose and my wiping it off with my finger.
I protected her from the world all the days of my life. I picked out black slacks, a black blazer, a colorful sweater and TL picked out white shoes. I want her to be warm, even if it is fiction...........she was warm this past week though, after always being cold. My dad was warm too before he died, that is the heart overworking and the body being warm before it dies. Those were things I was pondering in the signs before all of this. I have the answer now as I had hoped we had beaten it with the excess fluid having drained.
I keep telling God I can't take anymore and most comes. She had Thanksgiving but it will be an empty chair this Christmas.
Nuff Said
agtG
