I wrote this in my journal November 24, 2018, while mom was sick, it was Thanksgiving and we didn’t think she would make it through the weekend…
I’m sitting here Friday morning the day after Thanksgiving and the house is quiet for the first time in a while and I’m sitting looking at the mantle and wondering how we went from Halloween to autumn to Christmas so quickly. And as I’m looking at this I realize it was just a transition, a quick transition, then I was reminded that that’s what moms going through, a transition.
Ironically enough the hospice group that is helping us is named Transitions. When I went to see mom yesterday her breathing pattern had changed, and I asked Tara, the head nurse, about it she use the word transition, “it’s her transitioning”, I guess that’s just what is all around me.
It’s this transition. Spring turns to summer, summer turns to fall, fall turns to winter. Halloween decorations change to autumn decorations then change to Christmas decorations. Our girls change from going back-and-forth between parents and getting tucked into their beds, or fighting amongst themselves or sitting around the kitchen table or snuggling on their pets, to dating, to college life, to dealing with death.
Our life involved bringing a dog into our home. We watched her transition from a puppy to a faithful part of our family. We watched her grow and an oh how we all loved her. And then, like mom, she just got sick…so we took care of her, and then when the time came we held her as she she died.
Everything is a transition. Today or tomorrow my mom is probably going to die. It’s sooner than I thought it would be, and I guess I’m ready. I always wondered how i would feel at this time and it’s hard, however, I am grateful for the last few weeks and months that I have had with her and how our relationship has transitioned from one that has been tense and resentful, to just a daughter and a mother showing affection for each other and expressing their love for each other. The transition.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we were still at Kim’s house last night and my brother Ken thought the end was near, so he messaged me to tell me. Both girls decided to come with me to see grandma, we thought for the last time. What we found was better than that, it was like God giving us our last chance to say goodbye. She woke up enough to look each one of us in the eye and to say I love you, to recognize that we were there for her and that we loved her. It was beautiful, it was sad, it was needed. It was what I wanted, it was what I begged for, it was what I asked for, that one last moment with her. One last chance and it just worked out and God gave it to me, and I cannot forget that.
Now I begin transitioning from a daughter and a mother to just a mother.
I don’t know what the rest of the day is going to hold, I don’t know if she’ll be conscious enough to know that I’m there or if I’ll get another chance to look her in the eye to tell her that she was a good mom and that she taught me to be a good mom, but I got to tell her that last night and I think she understood.
I’m grateful, grateful for that one last moment with her and the last several weeks with her, to heal wounds that I didn’t really realize that I had. That the last memories and moments I have had with her were loving and cathartic. I was able to tell her and show her all my love that I really have for her and she showed me that her love for me was there and it always has been.