That Time my Mom Died- Part Two
This is the second post in a four-post series. Be sure to read Part one before getting into this one.
My memory gets a bit spotty after the phone call and drive home. My most potent recollections of that day included the phone call from my dad, an abnormally quiet ride home in the Jeep Liberty with three of my four younger siblings, and seeing my mother for the first time after she passed when we got home.
Growing up, my parents’ bedroom always had an "open door policy," and my siblings and I spent a weird amount of time hanging out in there. I think we all really enjoyed being in close proximity to our parents, so when they were in their bedroom, we tended to follow. We would lounge with them in their giant bed on sleepy Saturday mornings, play video games on the TV at the foot of their bed, and watch the snowfall and wildlife from the vantage point of my mom's favorite window chair.
All these happy memories now played in my mind as I stood in the open doorway, trying to comprehend the reality of the situation I was about to face. Just the night before, as I was preparing to sleep on the floor in my sister’s room, my dad came in and told me my mom wanted to talk to me. Her cancer had been doing its worst, and, in her decline, I hadn't heard her speak in several weeks. This sudden summons caught me off guard, but with some trepidation, I made my way into her bedroom. The room was dark and quiet except for the intermittent beeps from the various machines she was attached to. I made my way over to the side of her bed, where she lay facing the wall. Her eyes were closed, so I put one of my hands in hers to let her know I was there. She closed her fingers around mine and slowly opened her eyes to look at me. I knelt beside her there for a long time. Even though she couldn't muster the energy to speak, her loving gaze and gentle squeezes of my hand conveyed the message she had wanted me to receive. I have reflected on that time at her bedside countless times throughout my life and am so grateful that we had some semblance of a goodbye.
Now, standing at the same bedroom's entrance, I felt like a stranger in my own house and could not bring myself to go inside. It wasn't until my dad encouraged me to "spend some time" with my mom that I finally forced myself to step through the threshold into what now felt like an entirely foreign place. He closed the door behind me as I walked through, and I made my way onto the bed where, once again, I kneeled by her side. Unsure of what to do, I lifted one of her arms and watched it drop back to the mattress when I let it go. A feeling of complete emptiness came over me that I had never felt before. I didn't cry, I wasn't angry, I don't even know if "sad" is a fitting descriptor. Instead, it felt as if some massive piece of me had been ripped out and left to die there alongside her. I did not know how to process what I was feeling but sensed a hollowness forming in the deepest part of my heart and soul. I don't know how long I knelt there, but at some point, I gave in to the grief and collapsed on top of her, hugging her around her neck. I buried my face in her shoulder and cried with such intensity that I genuinely believed I might not ever be able to stop. I cried until the tears no longer came, and I found myself totally exhausted and out of breath. I remember my diaphragm aching and the muscles in my face and jaw being sore from the intensity of my expressions as I heaved and sobbed for what felt like the better part of an hour.
My dad eventually came in and sat next to me. He wrapped me in his own reassuring hug and spent a few minutes looking in her direction with me as we both let the weight of the moment settle on us. It was hard to grasp that these were our final moments with the woman who had been at the center of both our worlds.
As I write these words more than two decades later, recalling the experience evokes those same intense emotions within me. I couldn’t have known then that I would eventually mourn her loss all over again in what feels like a second life. The absence of the grandma to my kids and the mother-in-law to my wife underscores the void that still exists in our lives today and has profoundly affected how my family and my lives have played out.
Eventually, an ambulance arrived at our house to take her away. I know it’s a morbid picture to paint, but I will never forget seeing her being zipped up in a bag and slid into the ambulance on a big sliding tray. We watched as it left the driveway and took our mother away from the house she and my dad had built together for the last time.