She was eating orange sherbet when I walked in to her hospital room. My mom looked at me as I walked through the door and said, “Honey, you’re here! I am so happy. I’m going to see your dad tomorrow.” She died eight hours later.
But that’s not where this story begins. It begins one week earlier.
It was a Tuesday morning in September when I received a phone call from mom’s rehab facility where she had been staying, recovering from pneumonia. She was 84 years old and had many worsening health conditions since my dad passed away ten months earlier. Her pulmonary fibrosis now required that she be on four liters of oxygen. She had a pacemaker placed the previous April. Pneumonia settled in in August. And now weeks later, she was trying to catch her breath on 7 liters of oxygen and not doing well. The nurse from the rehab facility called and said, “Your mom needs to go back to the hospital. We don’t have the quick turnaround for medicine and care that she would have access to at the hospital.” I drove to the facility and saw her. Her breathing sounded a bit scratchy and labored. My mom told us she did not want to go back to the hospital. “Mom,” I said, “I think you need to go. Let’s get your oxygen under control and we will see from there.” She said, “I’m not ready to leave you yet. I’ll go to the hospital.” And off we went to the emergency room.
The day was spent in the ER. The care team immediately put an oxygen mask on her and then something called a bipap, which pushes oxygen in and pulls carbon dioxide out. She hated it. It’s large and hot and loud. But it did help saturate her lungs with oxygen and she was able to be on regular oxygen later that day. I called my brother, David, in Chicago and he decided to drive down to Bloomington to see her and stay for a couple of days.
In typical Mom fashion, she recovered. By Thursday, she was sitting in a chair in a hospital room, joking around and making conversation with her nurses enjoying the outside food we brought in for her since she could no longer handle the hospital food which had become common in her life the previous few months. Mom was doing well and my brother headed home to his family and work on Friday.
I went to the hospital on Saturday morning and sat with her. While she was in the hospital, I would go visit her each morning, bring her a coffee, sit for an hour or so and then head to work. I would then return in the late afternoon or evening and stay and visit until she went to sleep. On this Saturday, it felt different. I woke up knowing I wanted to spend the day with her. I packed a bag with a book, my notepad, my laptop. I walked in and she said, “You have a bag! Are you staying for a bit?’ I said yes and could I spend the day with her. Of course, she said, I would love it.
She felt different to me on Saturday. She felt, and I have been searching for a word for this, but all I have been able to come up with is “dreamy.” She was awake, eyes open, alert, and yet seemed to stare off at times. Zone out, if you will. I checked in with her. “Mom, are you okay? I don’t feel like you are 100% here with me today.” She looked at me and said, “I don’t feel like I am 100% here anymore.” We sat there for a moment, looking at each other, and I asked, “Are you dying, Mom?” She said, “I don’t think so,” and shrugged in her casual, funny way. She looked off again. I then said, “Mom, I know you’ve told me how you’d like some of your jewelry given to the grandchildren, split evenly after you pass. I want to ask you and it’s up to you - as your daughter, I would really like the diamond in your wedding ring. It can’t be split among grandchildren and if you want something else done with it, I understand. But if not, I would really like it.” She looked at me again, her eyes brighter now and she said, “Really? You’d like the diamond? Yes of course you can have it. Can we talk more about this?” I laughed and said, yes, of course. Let’s talk about everything.
For the next 8 hours, we talked. We talked about life. She talked about her life with my dad, what a wonderful time they had. She talked about how much she missed him. How sometimes their life together felt like a dream. We talked about who was to get what, where things were in the house. She talked about some things she wanted to do after she left the hospital, like visit my godmother in South Bend. I said I would absolutely take her after she left the hospital. We talked about memories of my brother and I growing up. She told me things I didn’t know about her, like about the boy she dated before my dad. She said she was tired and wanted to rest. She felt distant and otherworldly to me, but still earthbound. I told her to rest and I would be back later that afternoon. I came back and brought her dinner and as I was leaving to go home for the evening, we hugged and kissed and told each other we loved each other as we always did. Then she said, “Today was the perfect day, honey. Thank you so much. I love you.” “It was perfect, Mom,” I replied. “I love you, too.”
On Sunday, I stopped in to see mom in the morning and she seemed the same as Saturday. Here physically, but ethereal. I told her, “Mom, Maddie and I have to leave town just for the night. I won’t be long and I will be back tomorrow.” She smiled and said that was wonderful and to have fun.”
Joe went to visit and check on her Monday afternoon while I was out of town. He called me while there. She had the bipap on once again, her breathing starting to labor again. He put me on speaker and I told her I would see her that evening. Joe told me she nodded and understood.
While driving back to Bloomington, the earth already felt different. My senses knew life was changing. It had been shifting for a long time, but I knew now. The change was coming.
I first saw her nurse in the hallway when I arrived at the hospital, She told me mom had a rough day with oxygen and she needed to wear the bipap that night while she slept. She said my mom was being stubborn and not wanting to weat it and could I try to convince her? I said of course, I will do my best. I walked into the hospital that Monday evening and she was glowing, eating her sherbet. She smiled the biggest smile. She told me how happy she was, she was seeing my dad tomorrow. I said, “Mom, that is wonderful. But what do you mean, you are seeing dad tomorrow?’ She said, “Your dad has been here all day. I tied his tie. I baked. He ate all of the cookies I made.” I paused. “That is beautiful, mama.” She took another bite of sherbet with her eyes closed, the spoon missing her mouth a little. “Can I help you, mom?” She nodded. I took the spoon and ice cream and she opened her mouth and took a bite.
“Who is here with you, honey?” She asked me, her eyes still closed.
“It’s just me, mama. Just you and I are here.”
“No, the woman next to you,” she replied. “She is covered in gold.”
“I don’t see anyone, mom.”
“Is that you, Toots?” (Background: Toots was my brother’s godmother who worked at a jewelry store and was always dripping in gold chains.”
“Is Kuma Toots here, mom?’
“Is that an angel?”
“I don’t know, mama.” My eyes welling with tears.
Her eyes opened.
“Do you still see her, mom?”
She shook her head.
“Honey,” she said looking at me. “I love you so much. I am so happy. No more medicine. Let’s get this show on the road.”
I will condense this part. The phase of me telling the nurses and doctor my mom does not want the bipap, she just wants to be comfortable now. They confirm this with my mom. “My husband and I were married for 53 years and he is waiting for me over there. I am ready.” The caregivers give me options, I tell them just please make her comfortable. The doctor says it could still be days and maybe she should go to hospice house. My mom overhears this and says, “I am seeing my husband tomorrow.” The doctor smiles. He said he will get everything in order and be back.
My mom then turns to me and asks me to call my brothers, her cousin, my godmother, her dear friend, saying the same things to each of them: “I love you so much. I am so happy. I am seeing Bill tomorrow.” On one of the phone calls, the person on the other end of the line, obviously upset, not understanding what she is saying. My mom stresses her point: “Please don’t be sad, I am so happy. I love you, I am ready to see my husband.” The person continues on crying, my mom looks at me says in her sarcastic self, “I don’t need this.” And I take the phone back and say, “Mom is done talking now.” She smiles at me and laughs.
The doctor comes in and has medicine that will relax mom. He tells her what it is, she says once again, “Let’s get this show on the road, doc.” She turns to me and asks who the children playing the corner of the room are. I smile and say I don’t know, but I am sure they are happy. She smiles and nods. The doctor begins to give her the medicine in her IV port and I tell her all of the things as fast as I can.
“I love you, Mom. You are the best mom. We have had the best life. I love you so much.”
She fell asleep while I was saying the words. Four hours later, I laid next to her in her hospital bed while she did one large exhale and was with my dad once again.
At my mom’s funeral, I told our priest what she continued to say, about her knowing that she would see my dad the next day. I told him how the doctor said it could be days. How she died at 3:11am the next day. The priest told me that saints knew when they were dying. Their connection to the Lord so intertwined, they knew. My dad being there. Woman in gold. Children playing. I don’t doubt any of it. I’ve learned there are scientific terms for this, people having visions before death, knowing their death is imminent. It does not make it less divine, less mysterious to me. There are many scientific terms for things humans have yet to understand. Having a name for something does not make it less holy. It is clear to me now that everything that night was holy. And that sense has stayed with me since - that everything, everyday, everywhere is divine, is holy, if we are open to feeling it.
It’s the big unknown, death. It’s difficult for me to use that word now. What happened in that room that night didn’t feel like death. It felt like diffusion. It felt like her spirit, the love she was made of, left her body in one breath and dispersed throughout the air in that room and then left, on to the next journey, existence, dimension, plane. If energy cannot be created or destroyed, then the energy that is my mom is alive in a new way, in a different form. She is still alive, throughout me, within me, around me. And while I miss her, I also feel closer to her than ever. She no longer has to be physically with me for me to talk to her, for me to sense her. I just have to be open to feeling it.
So beautiful! Thanks for sharing 🥰
Thank you for sharing this precious and private moment with us Seja. How beautiful to be a witness to your mom’s passing. Sending you so much love!