The death of past and future

Six years ago today, I watched my mother die.

It's funny how there are some dates you remember crystal clear, whereas others you spend hours trying to get your brain to remember. (Think history class.) Then again, I suppose if you had watched the horrific and painful passing of a loved one on Arbor Day it would easy to recall without much effort.

For the last 5 years, I have spent this day trying to avoid those memories. This is like trying not to get wet in a rainstorm, but it doesn't stop me from trying. My mother had cancer, see, and it was a death which robbed her of her dignity, her body, and her spirit. The tumor was in the roof of her mouth, so even after they tried to take it out a few times (leaving her without a roof in her mouth and therefore no barrier into her sinus cavity) when it came back it had maximal impact. Doubling in size every month, it quickly moved on from golf-ball to softball. It was placed in exactly the right spot to rob her of her sight, her sense of smell, and her hearing. And since she had no palette in her mouth, she had already been unable to speak clearly or eat for quite some time.

I watched her melt. My mom was the strongest woman I've ever known. Even at a diminutive 5'2" she was able to arm wrestle any man that challenged her--and often win. She was the first woman in the factory to get a fork lift license. She was the first woman to become a stock chaser, which meant that she had to lift heavy items all day long. I remember how she would sometimes come home covered in cuts and bruises because everything had been built for a man, and a woman her size did not fit their mold. This just made her even more determined to outdo any man who had ever done the job. And she did. She was awesome. She worked hard, she was a single mom, she brought home the bread and bacon, and she never wavered.

Then cancer came. I first got the news via e-mail from her best friend while I was overseas in Japan. I didn't know she'd gone through surgery to get rid of it till she was home from the hospital. This was typical of her--there were very few things in her life she had ever asked for help with. Cancer was no different.

Her last Christmas (unbeknown to us), my live-in partner at the time (now my husband) flew with me to the Midwest to meet her. She and I had always passed for near twins most of my life. When she answered the door I recoiled in a moment of horror. Instead of seeing a near-perfect if slightly older version of my face, I saw a twisted stranger looking back at me. The latest surgery had horribly disfigured her. It didn't stop her from trying her best to make a nice dinner for us, give us gifts she had used precious energy to buy and wrap, and try to welcome my partner into the family.

Less than a month after that, I got the call. It was time to go home. When I arrived, my mother lay on the floor of the living room, wrapped in filthy blankets because she didn't have the strength to get up and wash them or herself. She turned away from me when I walked in, refusing to look at me and thereby admit that she needed help. My teenage brother dithered, utterly helpless. Not a single dish had been washed since Christmas. Holes had been eaten through the bottoms of pans. Animal urine and feces was everywhere from the dog and cats. It was impossible to walk through to my mother's bedroom from the laundry that sat in huge piles on the floor. The stench was palpable. It was truly like descending into hell.

Against my mother's wishes, I stayed. ("If you want me to leave, get up off the floor and kick my ass out!") I set to cleaning the house. I tackled the bathroom first so I could get her clean. The kitchen came next so I could make food for the family. Finally I made her bedroom into a place where she could lie quietly. Looking back, I realize that often she would lie back there, dying and alone, while I sat in a corner in the living room. As often as I tried to be near her, I didn't always have the strength. Every day the cancer would strip the flesh from her bones, and the spirit from her face. Every day there was a new hallucination, a new medication, a new issue to be dealt with.

She refused to see her family, and requested I be the bearer of that news. In spite of my trying daily to convince her to see them (and succeeding near the end--she allowed them to come in once when she was cognizant, and I brought them in once more to say goodbye when she was no longer able to respond), to this day they blame me for keeping them away. We do not speak. Every day was a battle I knew we would lose. Yet somehow I managed to continue fighting.

And then, six years ago today, her breathing changed early in the morning. I now know intimately what the "death rattle" is. My brother, her best friend, and I all gathered around her to keep vigil. At 4:00 exactly, she took a labored breath in, breathed out, her hands (now shriveled into claws) raked against the covers, and she went still. I remember I did not get to hold her hand. Both of them were held by the other two people in the room, and I didn't know where I would be able to touch her to let her know I was there.

She was 49 years old.

This memory is clear in my mind, my body, and my soul. It was the most painful and traumatic experience I had ever had, until our miscarriage last year. This memory, too, is clear, and is irrevocably connected to my mother's death. Our son's birth date was to be just the day before my mother's death date.

In my mind, I linked the two. After four years of infertility, IUIs, IVF, countless drugs and surgeries, finally it had worked. Finally, we had gotten pregnant. And finally, I would be able to be a mother to someone just like my own mother. Perhaps, I thought at the time, I'll get a piece of my mother back. Maybe I'll be able to look into my baby's eyes and see her. Maybe I will be able to have back a tiny bit of what I lost. Then, the week after we saw the heartbeat, the unthinkable happened.

And now, this week, I sit with ashes in my mouth. I cannot help thinking of everything that will not be. I cannot help grieving a double loss--that of my past, and of my future. There are very few people who seem to understand this. Either they have never lost their mother so young, or they have never lost a child. It is almost impossible for me to help others understand the tremendous burden of this grief that I carry, and how this week in particular increases its weight.

People try, understandably from their experience, to offer up hope. What they don't understand is that hope is a fragile thing. When it has shattered time and again, the shards of it begin to cut. The closer you hold it to yourself, the tighter you grip it, the deeper the wounds. At some point, hope must be laid down. Hope also must be allowed to die.

As I was when my mother lay dying, I continue to fight. For now. I do have some hope yet. But I realize that I am near the end of this struggle to find a future. At some point, I realize I may be called upon to watch it die. Just as I did my past.

It rained the day we put my mother's body into the ground. The skies here now are grey.

Rain is coming.