You Gotta Die of Something: Part II

The anticipated storm had given in to the strength of the sun’s outstretched arms.

When my mom “quit,” she chose to stop taking the hellish medication that was prolonging her life and say goodbye on her own terms. Since we were now free to just experiment, we decided to try removing protein because her liver couldn’t process it and go completely vegetarian. We had no idea how long this would last or if it would even work, but we bought a Vitamix from Costco and started blending up fruit and veggies for each meal. My husband joined my mom in support and called this the “Doris Diet.” He followed it for a whole year until friends started reprimanding him for losing too much weight.

 Doris, on the other hand, gained a little weight. Not only did my mom start enjoying some quality of life—mainly by not having to rush to the bathroom constantly, she began to improve overall. Her brain stopped fogging up. Mind you, we still had her funeral all planned out, as she was a pretty proactive person, always laughing at the future. She kept reminding us to make sure we called my brother before they put her in the ground since he tended to go long periods without a visit.

“Don’t forget to tell him what time the service starts. Somebody better drive by and pick him up for it.”

We planned a surprise 70^th birthday party, hoping she would at least make it to this celebration, even if she did look closer to 90 years-old from all the wear and tear. When the director of the venue called to ask a question and mom answered the land line, the surprise was ruined, so Doris jumped right in to planning her own party. She defied the odds and celebrated with old friends and relatives, and she didn’t even seem to miss the alcohol, as she was warned by medical personnel that even one drink could kill her.

She also got on the line and meticulously executed her “dying wish”—to swim with the dolphins. Mom got tickets for all of us to travel to Discovery Cove in Florida and watch as she and her grandchildren frolicked around the water with these beautiful animals. It was probably the happiest I have ever seen my mother. The months her doctors gave her to live turned into years. In the first couple years, we all joked:

“Hey, mom, can we all be included on your next dying wish again? Where should we go now? Europe?”

Doris moved out and, sure enough, journeyed down to Florida and bought herself a two-bedroom condo near my sister and her two teenage children. In the winters, the oldest granddaughter drove my mom to the grocery store and to the beach as often as possible. Mom even found herself a boyfriend and attended some local Big Band dances with him. Doris spent her summers up north in an apartment near my family, and my daughters got to enjoy dinners, old story-telling sessions and many shopping sprees as my mom liked finding them the perfect dress for each homecoming or prom dance. They made some great memories that defeated that one monster: the fear that they would forget their grandmother. Nope. Their brains recorded her laughter to store for all time.

Eleven years later; yes, you heard that correctly. Eleven years after doctors gave my mom a month or two to live, she slid downhill quite quickly. The hospital visits had become frequent again, and this last one left us with nothing to do but move up to the Hospice floor, for doctors could not keep up with the delicate balance between dehydration from drugs like Lasix and too much hydration from trying to keep electrolytes up and ammonia down so that she could speak to us coherently.

The last few days, they were weaning her of this game of draining and filling, and letting nature take its course, if that’s what we want to label nature. These weeks had taken a toll on me, and I did not feel ready to pass all control over to “Nature,” or to the Hospice staff. My daughter and I stopped in to see my mom one morning in the early hours before school started because I had been too exhausted the night before to get myself off the couch and over to the hospital, and I was feeling a little guilty about that.

A soft, colorful quilt that Hospice volunteers lent to patients covered my mom’s atrophied body, and she looked quite tranquil that morning as we patted her hands and spoke the day’s plans to her—the habit we had adopted as of late to pretend she could understand us, though she no longer responded. We heard on television shows that patients in comas possibly understand their visitors, and they sometimes react to family members, so we went with it, talking her ear off these days. The last time she spoke to me was about a week prior when she had the nurse dial me so, ironically, she could wish me a Happy Mother’s Day.

They say Hospice nurses can tell when a person is going to pass within hours. They will let you know when you should stay—when it’s time to say your goodbyes. She was resting peacefully that morning, so the nurse assured us that we could leave her in good care and come back later that evening. The level’s bubble was hovering in the middle for now. And my brother happened to show up just as my daughter and I were leaving to get to school.

On the way to the parking garage, through a scenic, skywalk bridge, my daughter and I looked up at the dark, ominous clouds, parting just for us. The anticipated storm had given in to the strength of the sun’s outstretched arms. We, of course, thought of my mom.

“Grandma must have caused that just now since she hated the gloomy weather so much,” my daughter said.

“Absolutely. Yes, she sent us that little gift.”

Once out of the parking garage, my cellphone lit up with several missed calls from my brother we had just left. I pulled over to call him back and learned that our mother had inhaled and exhaled her last breaths as we were walking to our car. That was just like her to go when she looked so calm, fooling the expert nurse beside her. She waited for us to leave and shared that intimate moment with my brother, ensuring that he would remember her passing, no doubt. She departed the earth through those dark clouds and left rays of light behind.