I just found this blog in my drafts...I wrote it in the early hours of the day we buried my beautiful little mother. Today is David's birthday and it was a month ago yesterday that I wrote this. I think today, David's birthday is the perfect day to show it to you all...
0202 and the house is finally quiet...its actually been quiet for quite awhile now, however I still roam about, as people lay sleeping, trying to restore some sense of order to what has become my siblings and my house.
I dusted and cleaned around David as he tried to make sense of the world he now finds himself in, somehow the axis has tilted and everything feels strange. He has lived with GeGe and me and Christie and Bekah in this house when it still belonged to my Mom. He was listening to music in an attempt to soothe the hurt the ache he must feel for her.
I wonder how he feels in these wee hours, I wonder what he is thinking about this woman he had loved, and all that will follow in the coming days.
Does he wonder about this house that I continue to tend to as he tries to rest and prepare for today...the day we lay the beautiful lady to rest? Does he feel what I feel, the tug, the knowing that this has been home for so long? Our things mingled with the things that have been here for so many years. Is he thinking about the people who are only wanting her things, the people who also loved her as he so quickly learned to do, the people who will live with regrets?
Does he wonder what will happen to the gardens that we have so carefully tended? Does he wonder what will happen to her things so treasured all these 66 years?
Or does he just lay awake and grieve this woman who grew to love him as her own?
I wonder....
Monday, December 7, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
so compassion will be my theme here
When my Mom recruited me to accompany her on this journey about 2 years ago, I never really had the end...the final destination of our journey in site. It had been all about the trip and the events thereof until about 22 days ago. Mom and my cousin Cathy and I discussed hospice and the peace that comes with the release of the medicine we use. I now have come to use the phrase 'medical abuse' for now I have witnessed it first hand. It shocks me, as I am a care giver, a sworn patient advocate, and a nurse who once promised to first...do no harm.
Mom grew to despise the oxygen tubing that tangled around her and her feet and furniture for the past several years. Despite my attempts at teaching her how to roll the tubing so it remained neat and safely at her feet, she always managed to wad it into a twisted mass...much like the Christmas lights we are now all unpacking.
Mom's doctors ran tests...many repeated...many times and poked her for blood and tested anything that came from her body. They gave her a pill for one thing that caused a reaction somewhere else, so they gave her another pill or two for that. She drank supplements, she took pills by the handful and had endured what we call modern medicine for way too long.
Despite my effort to say to that beautiful lady; look at the reality of your disease, look at the reality of coming back with some semblance of health from this hospitalization and see what we really have left. What will you have when they are done? What will life from the hospital be? What quality will remain?
Then they suspected she had TB. The very disease that stole my Mother's Mother from her when she was only 12 years old. Into isolation and into a fear that people would cross their fingers at the site of her, banishing her to a room alone with every ones faces covered by a mask.
Then came more medicine, one day it was 20 pills the next day even more, to the abusive 46 in one day. This filled Mom's belly, so food now repulsed her. She had no room in that beautiful little body to fit food, while the miracle pills the doctors ordered filled her gut.
One nurse told my Mom that she was depressed, that when she finished the steroids she would feel less anxious, she would feel much better, much stronger, and that a Zoloft would lift her mood and she would feel well again. It worked for her mother when she had a stroke, it would work for mine who had struggled for so long. A glimmer of hope for my Mom, despite the reality that steroids were one of the drugs that had kept her alive that far. Another stroke of abuse instead.
At one point that nurse quit talking with me, avoiding me when I came on the floor. She knew that I was a horrible daughter, talking to my Mother about giving up, lets call hospice, lets just let you die!
But that nurse didn't know my Mom, that nurse didn't see what I saw. I saw a tired, failing woman who wanted for the past twelve years to be with her beloved Husband Walter Gustave. She wasn't there when my Mom questioned God, she wasn't there to share a meal with Mom and watch her struggle to breath and eat, to move about her home of 66 years and worry about it and bills andworryandworryandworry.
That nurse didn't know my Mom, mother of 5, Gram to 14 and GeGe to 9. Once the Woman of the Year for her lifelong church Prince of Peace. Wife of Walt, spoiled and spoiled and spoiled till those who remained in her life could no longer compete with his memory. Her every Friday visits to the beauty shop, her volunteering for my department at the very hospital she had lay in just a few short days ago. The nurse doesn't know about Mom's card sending. Cards sent for comfort and cheer for births and deaths and everything else we each experience during our dash. She recently told me she had mailed 96 cards last year 'and that doesn't count the ones I have sent for the church'.
The nurse didn't know my Mom grew up a hard scrabble existence, often moving from her Mother's home to that of her Father's until her Paternal Grandparents stepped in and took charge of her, after her Mother's death. She didn't know the story of my Daddy visiting his cousin's home one day. Of his spying her at the window, and turning to his cousin and saying, 'I will marry that girl one day'. She didn't know Mom also chased Daddy away that first day of love. She didn't know that they married and bought a house for $3,600.oo in 1943, the model home with special touches like the glass door knobs, and the black and white bathroom tile that still remain. The nurse didn't know about the family that soon filled the home, so beautifully kept by her. That nurse didn't know that Mommy and Daddy took her Grandparents in and helped them, just as they had done for her so long ago.
Did that nurse have compassion? Is that what compassion is?
And then came the doctors...with their inability to tell their patient the reality, despite being told by us what her reality was. They continued their song and dance, 'You will go home, we will have PT come, we will give you more pills to prolong your life and make you whole and all will be right and good in the world we will make you new again.'
And then the angels came......
I'm not quite sure when they arrived, but they were beautiful dressed in their navy blue, with radiant smiles and warm caring hugs and it was then that I knew compassion as defined was still alive. And then more angels came in many other colors and sizes and shapes and they saw Betty Margaret Young Eggers and felt compassion for her.
They felt the compassion I felt, they helped this beautiful lady make her choice to have beauty and peace and warmth and love around her as she continued her journey, now leaving me behind.
For those who were there and witnessed first hand the transformation Mommy made, will tell you each how much more beautiful she became. She had the opportunity to say things she would not have said to people who needed to hear her words. She felt the compassion we gave, and yet in the last few days gave that very compassion right back to everyone who visited her and those Steel Magnolias who helped her on her journey.
Helping us realize that the journey isn't ending, its just beginning for my beautiful little Mother. Helping us realize that those doctors who tried with their pills and tests and words of encouragement...couldn't compete with the angels and the Promise from God, that all will be right and good and you will again be whole and have Eternal Life.
Mom grew to despise the oxygen tubing that tangled around her and her feet and furniture for the past several years. Despite my attempts at teaching her how to roll the tubing so it remained neat and safely at her feet, she always managed to wad it into a twisted mass...much like the Christmas lights we are now all unpacking.
Mom's doctors ran tests...many repeated...many times and poked her for blood and tested anything that came from her body. They gave her a pill for one thing that caused a reaction somewhere else, so they gave her another pill or two for that. She drank supplements, she took pills by the handful and had endured what we call modern medicine for way too long.
Despite my effort to say to that beautiful lady; look at the reality of your disease, look at the reality of coming back with some semblance of health from this hospitalization and see what we really have left. What will you have when they are done? What will life from the hospital be? What quality will remain?
Then they suspected she had TB. The very disease that stole my Mother's Mother from her when she was only 12 years old. Into isolation and into a fear that people would cross their fingers at the site of her, banishing her to a room alone with every ones faces covered by a mask.
Then came more medicine, one day it was 20 pills the next day even more, to the abusive 46 in one day. This filled Mom's belly, so food now repulsed her. She had no room in that beautiful little body to fit food, while the miracle pills the doctors ordered filled her gut.
One nurse told my Mom that she was depressed, that when she finished the steroids she would feel less anxious, she would feel much better, much stronger, and that a Zoloft would lift her mood and she would feel well again. It worked for her mother when she had a stroke, it would work for mine who had struggled for so long. A glimmer of hope for my Mom, despite the reality that steroids were one of the drugs that had kept her alive that far. Another stroke of abuse instead.
At one point that nurse quit talking with me, avoiding me when I came on the floor. She knew that I was a horrible daughter, talking to my Mother about giving up, lets call hospice, lets just let you die!
But that nurse didn't know my Mom, that nurse didn't see what I saw. I saw a tired, failing woman who wanted for the past twelve years to be with her beloved Husband Walter Gustave. She wasn't there when my Mom questioned God, she wasn't there to share a meal with Mom and watch her struggle to breath and eat, to move about her home of 66 years and worry about it and bills andworryandworryandworry.
That nurse didn't know my Mom, mother of 5, Gram to 14 and GeGe to 9. Once the Woman of the Year for her lifelong church Prince of Peace. Wife of Walt, spoiled and spoiled and spoiled till those who remained in her life could no longer compete with his memory. Her every Friday visits to the beauty shop, her volunteering for my department at the very hospital she had lay in just a few short days ago. The nurse doesn't know about Mom's card sending. Cards sent for comfort and cheer for births and deaths and everything else we each experience during our dash. She recently told me she had mailed 96 cards last year 'and that doesn't count the ones I have sent for the church'.
The nurse didn't know my Mom grew up a hard scrabble existence, often moving from her Mother's home to that of her Father's until her Paternal Grandparents stepped in and took charge of her, after her Mother's death. She didn't know the story of my Daddy visiting his cousin's home one day. Of his spying her at the window, and turning to his cousin and saying, 'I will marry that girl one day'. She didn't know Mom also chased Daddy away that first day of love. She didn't know that they married and bought a house for $3,600.oo in 1943, the model home with special touches like the glass door knobs, and the black and white bathroom tile that still remain. The nurse didn't know about the family that soon filled the home, so beautifully kept by her. That nurse didn't know that Mommy and Daddy took her Grandparents in and helped them, just as they had done for her so long ago.
Did that nurse have compassion? Is that what compassion is?
And then came the doctors...with their inability to tell their patient the reality, despite being told by us what her reality was. They continued their song and dance, 'You will go home, we will have PT come, we will give you more pills to prolong your life and make you whole and all will be right and good in the world we will make you new again.'
And then the angels came......
I'm not quite sure when they arrived, but they were beautiful dressed in their navy blue, with radiant smiles and warm caring hugs and it was then that I knew compassion as defined was still alive. And then more angels came in many other colors and sizes and shapes and they saw Betty Margaret Young Eggers and felt compassion for her.
They felt the compassion I felt, they helped this beautiful lady make her choice to have beauty and peace and warmth and love around her as she continued her journey, now leaving me behind.
For those who were there and witnessed first hand the transformation Mommy made, will tell you each how much more beautiful she became. She had the opportunity to say things she would not have said to people who needed to hear her words. She felt the compassion we gave, and yet in the last few days gave that very compassion right back to everyone who visited her and those Steel Magnolias who helped her on her journey.
Helping us realize that the journey isn't ending, its just beginning for my beautiful little Mother. Helping us realize that those doctors who tried with their pills and tests and words of encouragement...couldn't compete with the angels and the Promise from God, that all will be right and good and you will again be whole and have Eternal Life.
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