When We Laid Her To Rest

 

Three Autumns Ago.

Sitting

 In her room, in her last chair by the window,

My mother was sitting

her liver shutting down

cells fatty and scarred.

When I remember her now,

she sat all her life.

Sitting as living, sitting as dying.

My father said,

“Her mother liked to sit, too.”

I am like them both.

Sitting as breathing, sitting as sleeping.

I remember her quilt, her heating pad,

her TV tray holding a bowl of oatmeal

or one slice of tomato on a hamburger.

Her own mother was gone for so many years.

Now there is a philodendron and a piano,

Two yellow canaries and the last gray finch

They are sitting perched in their cage

pecking and sleeping-

a fur of feathers, rounding their bodies

slipping their heads into their chests.

At the piano I sit, playing

“The Heart Asks Pleasure First.”

They begin singing.

Goodbye

Three years ago we said goodbye.







Thank you, Amy Mulder Photography

Death Is Nothing At All

Two year anniversary of my mother’s death

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened. 

Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!



Source: https://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/death-is-nothing-at-all-by-henry-scott-holland

The Niche

On September 18th, four years ago, incurable cancer became a part of our story. I had to write about it in order to cope. Writing felt like the air I needed to breathe.

On September 8th, only one year ago, the remains of my beloved mother were sealed inside a niche in a columbarium at Glendale Cemetary in Washington. It had been eight months since her death.

At the time, I couldn't write about this.

I have been bereft and I have been silent.

I would like to try to find my way into a new space of writing. I'm not sure what that will mean, but I do hope those of you out there in the world that follow this blog and keep me and my family in your thoughts will stay with me.

Lovely Gifts || Fingerprint Necklace

I found these necklace kits by Precious Metal Prints the day of my mother's funeral while I was obviously stalling by shopping ... So my sister and I each had an imprint made and now have necklaces. It is a special gift to carry a loved one's print with you or keep stored to pass on.

I found it most difficult to let go of my mother's hands. This helped.

Je ne sais pas où va mon chemin mais je sais que je marche mieux quand ma main serre la tienne. – Alfred de Musset

"I do not know where my path is going, but I know that I walk better when my hand holds yours."

My Dog Peed on My Mother’s Obituary

At a time when we were unaware, Rocco chose a plastic bin of mine on the floor to lift his leg over and urinate on. He is a well trained dog and this was unexpected–so unexpected, he kept his secret for what might have been an entire day or two. The bin was one of several in a plastic storage unit that contained every note, card, letter, photo, and sentimental piece of paper (or pipecleaner) I had saved since I was in the third grade. So Rocco chose to not only urinate inside the house, he selected the only spot that could desicrate my emotional well being. (Other than my blankies).

At the top of the pile in the bin was my mother’s obituary. It appears the obituary took the first hit. Urine spilled across the obit and soaked into the edges of everything else stacked below it. A small pool formed in the corner and slowly expanded for the amount of time it took for me to notice. When I did, some items were still damp, while others were completely dry. They all had the unbearable stench that made me plug my nose.

I am positive that I was making the same exact sour faced expression that my mom always did. You’d have to ask Dan, who witnessed my discovery, but it really is one of those effortless abilities from sharing her genes.

Then fifteen minutes later, after I had inspected everything and stacked the bins safely lifted on top of Raine’s play table, I turned around to the sound of all of the bins crashing to the floor with everything inside of them spilling out. All of my f*ing precious s*it that wasn’t peed on, that I had carefully spent weeks organizing into g*d*mn f*ing chronological order, from my first f*ing baby photo until this recent f*ing laminated s*itty piece of paper that meant my mother was f*ing dead—

You get the idea. It wasn’t “Oh no! My kid spilled my glass of wine,” or “Dang, I locked my keys in the car again!” It was a torturous built-up reaction of anger that had been deep within me for months.

It was EPIC.

But it was all in my head. I didn’t dare let it out completely! To myself, I cursed every curse word in every combination I could think of, grabbed at the collection of matte, gloss, cardstock, newspaper, and notebook paper (and pipe cleaner) and threw them in heaps into the bins, carried each one upstairs stomping and sweating, to a closet in my office, where I slammed the door when I was done and yelled in a loud whisper at my mom for not being alive.

I marched into the dining room and opened a bottle of black label, and took a giant swig of it. Then I stomped across the house to the side door and burst outside, slamming the door behind me, OF COURSE.

I walked down the driveway and stopped, standing and looking up at the night sky with my arms crossed. I was fuming. But what could I do?

The sky is different in Illinois than it is in Oregon. There are no grandeous mountains here, nor the canopy of trees–cypress, fir, sequoia, pine, or cottonwood–Everything that I loved. Without those visual cues, the sky looks like it is closer, hovering at a shorter distance above me than I had experienced before. In this way, it is comforting. I really need that sensation–that the incredible expanse, with its myriad stars and planets and galaxies, vast and beyond comprehension, unknowable--—that I am nearer to thee. I take solace in moments of feeling that I am just a single speck of humanity, and having my tiny moment in the great infinity to live a life. I am made of the same dust and spark as everyone else, with a connection to them, I feel. I am nearer more than I am apart, even in these moments when the isolation of what I feel is so staggering. Who is to say that our connection and being nearer ends when we die? Even if it does, I would still give everything inside me to get what I get. It is small, but it is enough. Anger and all.

My Mother's Birthday

Missing her so much! I bought bouquets for Rachel and myself. She would have loved them.

The fam minus our sweet Mary.

Rachel picked up a cake to enjoy with Mary's friends who visited for the occasion.

Rachel, Linda, Don

Cheryl, Susan, Leah

Thursday December 8th, 2016

In the ER with a broken arm  |  Friday, December 2nd

Decor at OSF

At Riverview for rehabilitation  |  My last photo of her alive  |  The week of December 5th

My mother, Mary Martha (Hendricks) Hodel,

left this mortal world

 Thursday December 8th, 2016.


This is my personal account of her death.

Gripping my cell phone, I struggled to find the right words to tell Dan how scared I was. Since I had arrived that evening after work, my mother had been unable to speak to me again. I stood at the end of the hallway in the wing of her temporary care unit at Riverview in East Peoria. She was there to receive physical therapy while she healed from a broken arm. An exit door to my right was framed by full length windows of the black winter night. To my left, there was the bright fluorescent lights of the hallway. I heard televisions or muffled talk in the nearest bedrooms. I tried to speak quietly but my frustration pitched my voice and caught in my throat. I didn’t expect to arrive tonight and find her so much worse. I had left her room in a panic wondering what to do next.

Last night, sitting on her bed and facing her, gripping her hand, I had asked her again and again, as loud and clearly as I could, “How are you?” “Can you talk to me?” I bravely reminded her, “I love you!” “I love you.” I pleaded for anything… “Hi Mom!” “I love you!” “How are you?” “Can you talk?” She had only stared at me.

In five years of her living with liver disease, and the nightmare of increasingly severe hepatic encephalopathy, she had never reached a point when she couldn’t reply to me, even if she was having a day of complete confusion and disorientation. There was always a response–positive or negative. She could manage a smile or give me a kiss when it was positive, or she could give me a disgusted look or a very long sigh when it was negative. I thought the night before had just been a bad night. So bad that she couldn’t give me a wink or an eye roll. The trauma of her fall and broken arm, the hospital stay, the transfer to Riverview, and two days of attempted physical therapy…Maybe she needed a day or two to straighten out. I reminded myself how poorly she reacted before, when physical therapists arrived at her house to help–how she shrank from their hands and narrowed her eyes at their words. Resisted. The liver disease crippled her mind and her personality. But not her will. She had the will to defy what confused her.

Earlier that day, she had yelled and fought all day when she wasn’t quiet with agitation. Rachel and I thought she was again using her will to protest change and disorientation. That was her spark–her fighting. Wasn’t it?

Yet, I had watched her leave me the other night. The spark she offered me was gone. She let go of me, but I thought she was refusing me. She had begged for my dad, and he went to her bedside and I watched with wet, burning eyes, as he comforted her. In my denial, I thought she was acting. I thought she didn’t like where she was and she wanted to convince my dad to take her home. I thought she was being manipulative.

Your mind will find any logic it can to keep at bay the oppression of loss.

What we didn’t realize was that she was moving in and out of delirium, disorientation, and slipping in and out of a stupor, her conscious mind ebbing like water lapping at a shore, in and out, tipping and tapping at the damp, packed sand; over our toes, then away again.

***

On the phone, Dan didn’t know what to tell me. I understood there was really nothing anyone could tell me. He had visited earlier in the day while Rachel was there and knew how unsettled my mom was. He saw her discomfort and inability to communicate. He didn’t know what to make of it, and agreed with Rachel and the nurses that something was wrong–but we were still waiting on blood work results and the approval from the pharmacy for a pain patch. A nurse urged me, “Let’s give her the pain medicine and then see if that helps enough for her to communicate with us.”

I emphatically explained to Dan that I had seen her in pain before, even recently, and the state that she was in tonight was not a response to pain. There was something else happening. But I didn’t know what! I felt crazy. My dad and I had helplessly observed her rhythmic grunt and soft cough for an hour, the repetitive moments of her eyes closing and opening–then her pupils searching or widening in what looked like pain. Her skin was cold and clammy, the flesh mottled. I tried to speak in her ear loudly and ask clear questions again. “Are you in pain?” “What do you see?” “What hurts?” “Can you talk?” On and on. I pushed and poked on her body for a reaction. Nothing. I wanted to take her to the emergency room, yet I had no clear reason to. The nurse had checked her vitals. Nothing abnormal. After I pointed out a gargling sound as my mother breathed, she checked her lungs. Nothing serious. There was nothing alarming.

Unable to comfort me, Dan handed the phone to Raine, who had plenty to say. When he heard my voice, he asked “Why does your voice sound sad, mommy?”

“Mommy is sad because Grandma Mary is very sick.” I fought the tears but they came, relentless. “Do you want to say ‘Hi’ to Grandma Mary? That would cheer us up!” He agreed and I rushed back down the hallway to her room and put him on speakerphone.

When I walked in, I saw my mom still and quiet in her bed. The light seemed to fall on her too harshly–her skin look pallid. She stared at the floor to her right, with her mouth slightly open.

I knew.

However I walked up to her and put the phone near her left ear, letting Raine talk. That would change things, right?

“Hi Grandma!” He chattered loudly in his sweet, five year old voice. Her eyes remained fixed on the floor. I didn’t see her chest rise with a single breath.

I dropped the phone and shouted, “Mom! Mom! Mom!”

My deepest desire to have her again ripped out of me into my hands that sought every part of her face, caressing it, feeling, probing, checking, and then cupping her chin. I gripped her shoulders, shook them vigorously, shouting. I kissed her and wailed against her cheek. My mind was a constant refrain: Where did you go? Where did you go? Don’t go! Don’t go! Don’t go!

My shrieks and sobs alerted my father in the hallway and he came in and saw us. He ran back out of the room for help.

She was taken to the hospital and Rachel, in her enormous strength, made sure she was properly treated in the ER. However there was never a pulse to work with. The pronounced her dead an hour after I had found her. Rachel advised me, lead me, comforted me, explained everything they had done and would do. In her own pain and tears, she comforted me. Dan arrived later and Rachel explained for me that our mother was dead. He joined us as we spent an hour together with our father in the room with my mom.

I found my greatest comfort in holding her hand–the hand I had known all my life, how it felt and how it held my hand.

I found my greatest strength when I comforted my mother, in her death, kissing her cheek and caressing her hair. Her blood and breath ceased, and her skin grew cold, purple, and pale, but she could not have looked more beautiful. My admiration of her strength through her disease and love for us all withstanding…It will carry me and give me hope always.