Friday, April 22, 2011

Home Sweet Home

As the title says, I’m finally on my way home after what has been a really tough week.  Starting around two weeks ago, my mother’s condition worsened steadily, to the point where it was obvious that I needed to get back home ASAP.  So I tried to fly out Thursday last week, had my flight cancelled without warning, and finally wound up having to book the last flight available out-of-town on Friday—on a different airline!  Still, I was lucky enough to get in early on Friday morning, and more to the point, with the day off on Thursday and nothing to do in any immediate sense, I was able to spend A LOT of time running and swimming and basically working through my feelings…  As it turned out, that was a good thing.

For awhile, Friday was rather close to my worst case scenario.  I got in, and my mother didn’t know where she was or what had happened.  So I sat down with her and did my best to explain it all, but with a breathing tube stuck in her throat via tracheotomy, communication was difficult at best.  Then, shortly after that, the doctor came in and started talking about Hospice care.  To say the least, Mom did not want to hear that.  She got this look in her eyes like she refused to believe what was going on, and honestly, for awhile, I think she thought we had bad intentions.  So, bottom line, as I feared, I wound up sitting there trying to talk my mom into Hospice.  Well, for better or worse, it wasn’t much of a sell on my part because by then my mother had really been through Hell, and she was quick to realize that there wasn’t at all any likelihood of her recovery.  So the doctor left, and we sat, and by the time he came back—about an hour later—she not only wanted to go on Hospice, she wanted me to pump her full of morphine and remove her breathing tube, personally.  Bottom line, if there wasn’t any hope, then Mom wanted to end it, time now, and quit screwing around. 

And then I had to go explain it all over again to my grandfather—my mother’s step-father—who was apparently caught completely by surprise.  Which is to say that he’d known what had to happen, but I think he’d been in denial about it.  Not a fun conversation, that.

Anyway, it took about six hours and quite a lot of argument with the ICU nurses—who aren’t like Hospice nurse and get very concerned about over-medicating—but I eventually compelled them to follow my mother’s wishes.  Some of her friends came over, we said goodbye, and then they gave her the morphine pump, and once she was out, yes, I personally pulled off her breathing tube and shut it off.  After that, it took about four hours.  She was gone before midnight on Friday.  It was sad, but at the same time, it was also a relief because the last few months were pure Hell—for her and for those who loved her.

Saturday and Sunday were like days of waking dream.  I stayed at my grandfather’s house, and we consoled each other.  I ran a lot and swam a lot, and I went grocery shopping, and I tried to catch up on lost sleep.  And we made the arrangements for the funeral.  Then Sally got into town on Monday morning, and we started trying tie up some of Mom’s affairs and get a start on cleaning up her house.

We buried my mother on Tuesday.  In deference to her pride and the fact that her beauty had been a casualty of the year’s illness, I decided on a closed casket.  Still, the weather was nice, and it was a very nice service, and considering the size of the little town she lived in down in Tennessee, I was amazed at the number of her high school classmates that attended the funeral.

After that, it was work.  I skipped my day’s workout on Wednesday—and then again on Thursday—and Sally and I headed to Mom’s to get serious about packing up valuables and cleaning up.  That was quite a job.  To say that my mother took solace in mindless shopping would be to make the understatement of the year.  On top of that, by the end of the week, I really felt like we’d been living on another planet.  There are a lot of nice, kind, committed, intelligent people in the South and in Tennessee, but then again, there are also a lot of folks who aren’t like that.  I mean, I suppose most Tennesseans are polite enough, but whenever they heard my (lack of) accent, they invariably gave me a look that was either naked curiosity or naked hostility.  It was kind of cute at first, but by the end of the week, I was more than ready to get back to the familiar anonymity of Connecticut and New York.  Having to explain to virtually everyone I met that I was in town to bury my mother was more than a little tiresome by the time the third day rolled around.  And then, too, some Southerners view Yankees with the same contempt that most folks reserve for serial rapists.  It gets old.

Anyway, I’m on my way home now.  I dropped Sally at Nashville airport this morning, and then headed up in one of my mother’s cars.  It’s been a log day, but with the end in sight, I’m finally happy.

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