“Not in my whole life,” Mom said in her defence. “I know you have this thing about me and parking spots. But given my circumstances, and my age, and what women were like, I’ve accomplished quite a lot, and I’ve been brave in a lot of situations.” She paused. “But this one, you’re right. It’s a conglomeration of a whole bunch of stuff that came together.”
“I wouldn’t say that about you in general,” I clarified. “But for some reason, when it comes to parking spots and getting medical help, you assume the worst.”
“I do. So that’s the way it is, and that’s why I’m here.”
We were both silent for a few seconds before she once again stepped away from the truth and turned things around for herself.
“But I could have been dead four years ago. Nobody knows for sure. You had me for a nice five years…even though you were nervous all the time,” she added with a chuckle.
Mom was still justifying her decision, but at least she’d somewhat acknowledged that it had affected me. And, for the most part, we did have a nice five years. Except that while Mom was off gallivanting, I was taking one for the team. Maybe I faced reality so she didn’t have to.
19
TEMPURA-GATE
“How much time do you think I have left?” Mom asked her palliative care doctor when he was over one day for a checkup. We were in the living room. Mom was sitting back on her new La-Z-Boy powerlift recliner we’d rented. She didn’t have the strength to get up from a chair on her own anymore.
He could see how little energy she had. “I’d say you’re looking at weeks now,” he replied.
“Wow, okay.” Mom nodded, taking it all in.
It was now June. “It feels more and more real,” Mom said. She agreed that it was time to put her on the list for hospice care—although there was only one place she was interested in. Kensington Hospice was located in an old converted church hall on a beautiful tree-lined street in the Annex. It had stained-glass windows, exposed brick, and iPhone docks in all the rooms. It was like a five-star boutique hotel for dying people—the place to go if you wanted to go in style.
Kensington had only ten rooms, so someone would have to dearly depart for Mom to get a spot. It was going to be as difficult as getting a toddler into a prestigious daycare. Josh and I made an appointment to look at the place. It wasn’t the kind of sibling outing we’d expected so soon in our lives, and we were grateful we had each other.
We met with the head nurse, who gave us a tour. As Josh and I followed her up the stairs, I turned to him and whispered, “Let’s see who’s paying their bill.” We made eyes at each other as we walked around, peering into open doors to see who looked like they were ready to check out (spoiler: everyone). We’d entered into a kind of earthly purgatory, somewhere between life and death, where even our jokes couldn’t shield us from the palpable sense of gravitas in the air. People were there to die. It wasn’t a sad place per se, but I had an immense feeling of gratitude and lightness being able to walk out of there.
Josh and I gave Mom a full report when we got back. We were impressed with the caring and attentive staff we met. And the place itself was charming, cozy, and modern, just as in the brochure. There was even a grand piano in the communal area. Mom raised her finger in the air and declared, “I’ll be disappointed if I die anywhere but Kensington!”
* * *
—
AS MOM’S CONDITION changed, so did our routine. There was a constant recalibration. Mom now divided her days between her bed and the purple couch in the living room. The only time she got up anymore was for her morning commute to the living room, bathroom breaks, and shuffling back to bed. She was too weak and tired to get up to shower, so Maymouna gave her sponge baths in bed. As much as I wanted to take care of Mom, I was never going to help her in the bathroom or change her diaper. That’s where I drew the line. Mom always taught me it was important to have boundaries.
Mom was still into cannabis because it made her feel good—oil in the morning, bud in her vape at night—but she was no longer bothering with Michael’s herbs or homeopathy. She now preferred Percocet, which I’d place in her mouth before bed. (“Okay, Baby Bird, time for your pill,” I’d sing, playing out some twisted game of “Who’s the Mommy?”)
One night I was awakened by Mom calling out for me. There was panic in her voice. I hopped out of bed and ran to her room. When I opened the door and switched on the light, I saw Mom lying face down on the floor with blood on her face. In a pained voice, she explained that she’d been trying to make her way to the bathroom when she took a nosedive. She couldn’t get up.
I jumped into action, squatting over her and getting a good grip under her armpits. And then—using an improvisational wrestling move of sorts—I flipped us both over so that she was sitting between my legs. It didn’t take that much strength, but my heart was beating fast. Mom was breathing rapidly, too. I was pretty sure we were both thinking the same thing: Holy shit holy shit holy shit. We just sat there for a few seconds, terrified. I had a flashback to Barcelona, the shock of seeing Mom so helpless and vulnerable. But this was a hundred times harder. With her broken elbow, the threat to her mortality was still abstract. But now she was fully in the process of dying. It was impossible for me to repress that fact anymore. There would be no cast to wrap her in, no stabilizing the situation.
I got around in front of her and pulled her up onto her feet. She was very heavy and wobbly. It clicked what the palliative care doctor meant when he’d said that her body was like “liquid cement.” I helped her back into bed and gently wiped the blood off her face with a washcloth. We didn’t talk. We were putting up a good front, but both of us were shaken. There was a lot of joking, easiness, and even fun during Mom’s dying. But there were also instances like this when we came face to face with how awful it truly was.
It wasn’t safe for Mom to move around on her own anymore. She needed a spotter when getting in and out of bed, up from the couch, or walking to the bathroom. She’d place her hands on my shoulders and I’d walk backward with my hands on her hips—like an awkward junior high slow dance. I had to wake up two or three times during the night to take her to the bathroom or get her a cold Ensure from the fridge. “Rachel!” she’d holler, and I’d hop to my feet. The interrupted sleep was making me loopy.
By this time Molly had started staying over two or three nights a week. She’d even been giving Mom foot massages. And so one night, desperate, I asked her to get Mom to the bathroom. Molly was happy to help. But neither of us was exactly thrilled about having to get out of bed in the middle of the night. “Your turn!” we’d say to each other in groggy voices. It wasn’t even a year into our relationship and it was as if we were sleep-deprived parents of a newborn. After a couple weeks of this routine, we reached a breaking point. It was clear that Mom needed round-the-clock care.
* * *
—
BY THE THIRD week of June Mom was sleeping away most of the day. She described being in another world, where she was half gone. “I think about everyone, but I just don’t have the energy anymore to really be in the world with them,” she told me. I was lucky if I got a few minutes with her every day. When I’d check on her, sometimes she’d wake up for a bit or just give me a wave. Other times I’d sit next to her and read while she slept.
On one occasion I asked, “Is there any silver lining to this?”
As I ran my hands through my hair like a nervous wreck, Mom looked at me with her big glassy eyes. She barely had the energy to talk anymore. There would be no more sermons. Mom got straight to the point.
“No.”
Her truth bomb hit me right in the chest. I don’t know what I was hoping for. That there was wisdom to be gained? That I’d become a better person? I wanted to hear that this hell wasn’t all for nothing. But Mom was right. It just deeply, horribly, resoundingly sucked.
Day by day I was losing her more
and more to the other world. I was extremely anxious. What do I do when I have a broken heart again? What kind of French cheese do I buy?
“I don’t know how I’ll live without you,” I cried.
Mom kept my gaze as she summoned the energy to speak. Slowly. “You…will…grieve.”
As death approached, Mom was prescribed morphine to help ease her discomfort. I never would’ve imagined I’d be injecting morphine into my mom’s abdomen. A palliative care nurse prepared a bunch of syringes and showed me how to flick the air bubbles out and then squeeze the drug into Mom’s stomach. No more cannabis oil. No more vaporizer. It was Percocet and morphine from here on in.
We started developing our own language. Or rather, I was learning Mom’s new language. She now spoke mostly in winces, scrunched-up faces, and the slightest of nods. By late June she couldn’t stand up at all. She was officially bedridden, and miserable.
The last few days of June brought a torrent of rain and dark, dramatic clouds. Thunder crashed and lightning lit up the sky. I get it, I get it! I wanted to say to the Universe. One afternoon I watched Mom wake up and slowly summon the energy to speak. “I want a Perc…and a Borgen.” I laughed. She hadn’t been up for watching TV in at least a week. I thought our Borgen days were over, but Mom was back! I held a Percocet above her mouth.
“Baby Bird,” she whispered before opening wide. I pulled up a chair beside her, placed my laptop in front of us on her rolling tray table, and turned on the show. I tried to savour the completely ordinary yet entirely blissful moment. I knew this would be the last time Mom and I would ever watch TV together. We lasted for about ten minutes before she fell back asleep.
That evening for dinner, I ordered takeout from the Japanese restaurant down the street. I had fond memories of Mom taking me to Edo for my favourite shrimp tempura after the divorce. It was my comfort food. I went out to pick it up, and when I returned, I discovered to my dismay that they’d forgotten to include the tempura dipping sauce. All I saw at the bottom of the plastic bag were two soy sauce packets.
It was the dipping sauce that broke the camel’s back. I was enraged. SOY SAUCE DOES NOT GO WITH TEMPURA! HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT MY TEMPURA WITHOUT ITS RIGHTFUL SAUCE? If it wasn’t bad enough that my mom was about to die, now I had to eat dry tempura. The indignity! I called the restaurant and was brushed off by the manager with a simple sorry. I didn’t want an apology. I wanted my dipping sauce! I wanted my mom not to die! I wrote to the owner, and then complained to him over the phone that night. In short: I was a crazy person.
* * *
—
ON THE FIRST day of July I received a call from the head nurse at Kensington. A bed had opened up. Finally! I didn’t know how much longer I could keep managing Mom’s palliative care unit on my own. We made plans for the nurse to come over at the end of the week for an assessment.
When I woke up that Friday morning Maymouna had already arrived, so I figured I’d take the opportunity to get outside for a few minutes. I went into Mom’s room: “I’m going out to get a coffee, Mom. I’ll be back soon.” When I leaned in to give her a hug, she whispered in my ear, “Get two.”
“You want a coffee?” I asked, grinning. I was puzzled. She hadn’t drunk coffee in months. She was barely able to drink water anymore. She nodded.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll get you a coffee.” I assumed she was confused, but what the heck.
When I returned from Starbucks I poured some of my Grande Americano into a mug and then dug into the cardboard box of dental sponges that had been sitting in the corner of her room. I unwrapped one of the grey foam lollipops, dipped it in the mug, and put it in Mom’s mouth. She perked up immediately, going to town on it like a hamster on a bottle feeder.
“This is delicious,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s been so long.”
My heart burst with joy. It was a far cry from our cappuccinos in France, our café con leches in Spain, and all the mornings we’d spent chatting over coffee in her sunroom, but being able to have one last coffee with Mom made me somehow deliriously happy. I dipped the sponge back in and Mom kept going.
When the nurse from Kensington arrived we sat down on either side of Mom, who was in bed, seemingly asleep. I told the nurse that I honestly didn’t know if it was best for Mom to move to the hospice at this point. She was on the brink of death. I wasn’t sure if it was worth schlepping her down there, even though, selfishly, I was afraid of handling her death on my own.
“I think it would be better,” Mom whispered, barely awake. I was surprised she’d been following the conversation.
“To stay? Or go?” I asked her. I wasn’t sure which she’d meant.
Mom breathed the words out. “To go.”
The nurse nodded. I was relieved that Mom still wanted it, and that I didn’t have to make the decision for her. If Mom was still alive on Monday, an ambulance would arrive first thing in the morning to take her to the hospice.
* * *
—
FOLLOWING TEMPURA-GATE, MY anger was still sizzling away. I had to channel it somewhere, and this time my target wasn’t quite so oblique:
Dear Michael,
My mother is now nearly dead and there are a few things I want to say to you. All things considered, my mother was very lucky to have been diagnosed five years ago with Stage 1 rectal cancer. She was given a 70–90% survival rate. However, she rejected the recommended medical treatment in favour of taking your herbs.
I’m not sure if it’s your ego, misguided belief in the ultimate power of herbs, or genuine wish to help—I assume a combination—but it was astonishingly irresponsible of you to tell my mom that your herbs could help her. There is NO evidence to suggest that herbs can cure rectal cancer. My mom said that you were “surprised” to hear a few months back that her cancer had progressed to Stage 3. Were you actually surprised??? Did you really believe your herbs would cure her???
Furthermore, as you suggested in your previous email, “absolute faith” may be important, but evidently it’s not a cure on its own. My mom needed to have her cancerous tumour removed—that’s NOT just my “personal belief”—but instead she followed your precarious guidance. My family should sue you for practising medicine without a licence.
Ultimately, I know it was my mom’s choice to go down the alternative path instead of the one the doctors recommended. But I do hold you responsible for enabling her lethal decision, even profiting off of it. (I can’t believe you have the nerve to offer to sell her more herbs while she’s on her deathbed!)
Since being diagnosed five years ago, my mom has been extremely vulnerable. Due to a combination of fear, trauma, and a general mistrust for conventional medicine, she wasn’t acting rationally and was clearly not grasping what the doctors were telling her. However, as someone who supposedly works in the field of health care, it’s your job to look out for patients not acting in their best interests. You should have pointed her in the direction that was best for her health, or at the very least, clearly stated to her the limitations of what your herbs could offer, rather than enabling her to kill herself.
Rachel
* * *
—
MOM AND I made it through to Sunday; now we just had to make it through one more night. I placed a few of her things in a box: a couple T-shirts, her hairbrush, a favourite blanket. It wasn’t going to be a long stay. A little after 11:00 p.m. I went into Mom’s room to say goodnight. She was still breathing, but she looked like a corpse. Her face was pale and skeletal and her mouth hung open.
Somehow I managed to squeeze myself into the single hospital bed next to her. I rested my head against her bony shoulder, put my arm around her chest, and held her tightly. I could feel she was still there. The last time we’d been in a hospital bed together was thirty-five years before, when I was born. And now our time was almost up.
I’d read somewhere that it�
�s important to give a dying loved one permission to die. Apparently people sometimes hang on too long and continue to suffer because they don’t feel they can let go. I thought I’d perform my due diligence.
“If you want to go, you can go,” I said, my eyes welling up with tears.
Mom suddenly shifted. “What?” she muttered, semi-conscious and confused.
Well, this is awkward. I hadn’t thought she could hear me.
“I mean, I prefer you don’t,” I said, backpedalling. “Stay as long as you want.”
20
COLD STORAGE
The alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. Is she still alive? Mom’s impending death felt like a morbid game of Hot Potato. When would the music stop? Who’d end up holding the potato? I really wanted to be there when Mom took her final breath, but I was terrified of discovering her already dead. I hopped out of bed and peeked into her room. She was still breathing. I guess we really are moving.
I got dressed and finished packing my bag. As I tossed my toiletries into my knapsack, I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I stopped to take a closer look—it had been a while. I appeared swollen, dishevelled, totally worn out. I stared into my own eyes: Today is the day my mom is going to die. I said a silent goodbye to the me who had a mom.
It was dark out and eerily quiet in the condo. That stillness, like waiting for an early morning taxi to the airport. Our bags were packed and we were ready to go. Was anyone really coming?
At precisely 7:00 a.m. there was a loud knock at the door. I opened it to see two medics standing in the hallway with a stretcher, ready for action. I showed them to Mom’s room and watched as they each held two corners of her bottom sheet and, on the count of three, swooped her frail body from her bed onto the stretcher. Genius!
Dead Mom Walking Page 24
