A Beautiful Death

I would have posted more frequently during my mother's last days if only the server which hosts my blogs had not migrated and upgraded to a new server and address causing all sorts of problems getting the blogging software to work and appear.    I did write several posts that never appeared because I hadn't realized that I had such a problem for several days.

I didn't have the wherewithal to take the time to get help and figure out how to fix it.  After all, my mother was dying.     

We hear so much of horrific and painful deaths that it's hard to imagine death can be beautiful.  Yet, such was my experience of my mother's death.    She was in her own house, in her own bed, surrounded by love.    Every one of us believe that it was a great privilege to be with her and with each other,  our bond as a family greatly strengthened.

My mother was very independent, used to doing things the way she wanted.  She didn't want chemotherapy, she didn't want to be in a hospital.  Too often, elderly people fall, break a hip and end up in a hospital where they are poked,  prodded and fitted with all sorts of tubes and IVs and other devices to preserve life for a few more days.  But if you have cancer and know that you will die if you do not treat it, hospice is an extraordinary resource because they are skilled in palliative care, meaning they know what drugs should be given to a dying person to relieve pain, yet keep the mind alert and focused on the life still to live.

Even as she grew more frail and weak, my mother's last days were happy ones, spent receiving visitors, sitting at the dinner table with all of us, taking very short walks outside with someone on each side making sure she didn't fall, watching the leaves, paying her bills, doing her crosswords, and playing with her newest grandchild, 5 month old Adia Moxie. Even as she began sleeping most of the day, too tired to go downstairs even in the elevator, we gathered more in her bedroom and from time to time, she would sit bolt upright and beam at all of us, radiant. 

The last five days she was unresponsive, eating nothing, drinking nothing.  The hospice nurse put her on a morphine drip and told us she thought she would die Friday.   My sister Colleen, a nurse, gave her anti-anxiety medication periodically whenever she saw the slightest indication of a furrow on my mother's brow.  She grew tinier in her big bed, her strong heart using every last bit of her substance so she could be with us and us all together in one room just a little bit longer.

Because all of seven children came home to be with her, someone was always with her, reading, saying prayers, playing music or lying down beside her.  Downstairs, meals were made,  dishes cleared and washed, laundry done, bike trips taken, gardens weeded, flowers planted and beer drunk.

Monday, the last day, my brother Robby brought up my mother's favorite wine, Santa Margarita Pinot Grigio and we all - me, Kevin, Billy, Colleen, Robby, Julie and Melinda toasted our mother and put a tiny drop of wine on her lips, the last thing she tasted.

A few hours later she died.  A half hour after that, her mouth relaxed into a smile and we knew she was in heaven.

Over at Legacy Matters, I've posted the eulogy for my mother Posted by Jill Fallon at June 26, 2007 12:45 PM | Permalink