Its Been Almost 519 Days
It’s been almost 519 days since she left. Almost 519 days since she’s been home. Almost 519 days since she heard our voices surrounding her. It’s been almost 519 days and the pain has radiated past my heart, into my spine and permeated my brain with intermittent flash backs of her smiling at me and laughing. Each one, each memory loaded with tiny spikes and leaves me wondering what’s the point of love if it means loss.
It’s been more than 519 days since she smiled her last real smile. I think the last real smile was on the porch when my sister, my husband and I dropped off the new TV. She stood on the porch, her cute tiny self, bald and smiling as she cried “you guys shouldn’t have done that”! My parent’s TV had died and after my moms stroke she spent a lot of time on her couch watching TV and was already buried in co-pays from her new diagnoses. A new TV wasn’t in the plans. So, we got them one, because it seemed like quite literally the only thing we could actually do to help. She seemed so happy in that moment.
It’s been more than 519 days since she called me on the phone. “Coli I need help”. You see, my mom had been perfect one day and the next lost much of the function of her right side. She was right handed. Imagine how it must feel to be a perfect, healthy human one day and the next you can’t do simple things that you had always done. Imagine. “No one should have to do this for their mother” my mom said as I clipped her nails outside on the back porch. “I love doing this mom” I responded, choking back tears. It was all I could say. The hours I’ve spent reflecting on that day; my mother’s face, the look of despair. That look in her eyes will haunt me for the rest of my life.
It’s been more than 519 days since I went to her appointment, the one they wouldn’t let me into because only one person was allowed and my dad wouldn’t leave her side. So, they put me on speaker phone so I could listen to the oncologist give my mom some details and treatment options. I sat in my car and listened to the doctor tell my mom, basically, in nicer terms, her life was over. Maybe two years with aggressive treatment, six months without (she was wrong though, it wasn’t even 2.5 months). I couldn’t even hug her. I listened to the silence over the phone, alone in my car. It was the loudest silence I’ve ever endured. I clamped my mouth shut and squeezed with my fingers and hit mute so no one would hear me cry. I didn’t let myself become too undone, I had to be pulled together by the time they left the appointment.
It’s been more than 519 days since I texted her “Good Morning. Love you”. That was the last message she ever read. It says so in tiny letters below my text; “Read 9/3/22”. I’ve sent more since then. I tell her how much I miss her, how much I love her. “I hope you’re happy wherever you are. Love u” is my last one. I remember sending her a text when she was at the hospital that first stay and then staring at my phone waiting, waiting for the three dots to tell me she was typing… and if she was typing that meant she was ok. I stared and stared and begged God, please respond to me. But she didn’t. And when I woke up that same night, gripped by a heartache I'd never before felt, and could barley catch my breath through my sobbing, I could actually pinpoint the exact time my heart ripped completely open.
It’s been more than 519 days since I got the call at work. It was the nice lady from the cancer center. She let me know that my dad had forgotten his phone and that my mom had become unresponsive on the car ride to radiation. My dad, not knowing what to do and almost to the center, sped to the front entrance and burst through the doors and started screaming for help. She told me they took her to the ER down the road. I slammed down the phone and ran. I don’t remember any of the car ride. I walked in and threw my arms around my dad who was sitting alone stunned and broken. He was shaking when he told me that mom had woken up that day and said “I can’t do this anymore”. The radiation had left her confused and lost. The surgeries had changed her. The multiple strokes and gain and loss of function had dehumanized her. The pain had left her hopeless. If I was being honest, my mom had been gone for a while. I don’t know how else to explain that. The light, her light, had been gone for a while. When I looked in her eyes the previous weeks, they were dark and lonely and scared. That day we made one last ditch effort. One last transfer and surgery. What was supposed to be a 45 min surgery, ended up being three and a half hours. The surgeon hugged my dad when he told him “I need you to know I tried all I could and when I go home at night I need to know I did everything I could to save a life, and I’m so sorry I couldn’t fix your wife”. He held my dad for a few extra seconds. The surgery was unsuccessful. The clots couldn’t be cleared. We had to find a way to let her go.
It’s been more than 519 days since I sat in her room, held her hand and looked into her beautiful big brown eyes. She looked perfect on the surface but man, her insides were so broken and I can’t help but take that lesson and burn it into my soul. It feels important. The lessons. Because if not, what do I have? The memory of the sunrise, when the nurse helped move her bed so we could watch it together. I squeezed her hand and felt her skin knowing these hours were numbered. But that day, that sunrise, we were taking her home. Taking her to her favorite place. To her dog who missed her. That last ride home, knowing she would never experience that again. The twisted roads and places where you had grown up. It was surreal. I moved in a vacuum, unable to process what was happening.
It’s been a bit more than 519 days since I said my 1,000 goodbyes. But from her, we didn’t even get one. No last I love you, or words of wisdom. We didn’t get a reciprocal goodbye. Just a one way, from us and incomplete. I’m still waiting for her to walk into the room and tell me all the things. It’s what our minds do, a little party trick to up the anxiety. But we sludge on, because we have to. I talk to her all the time. She just doesn’t talk back. I want to hear her. I want to know that wasn’t it. But sadness has a cunning way of enveloping you in such a way that you become narrow minded and self-focused. Sadness seeped in and settled in my bones, almost like a possession. It’s me but it’s not. And how can she talk to me when I refuse to hear her? I guess once I stop being angry I may get lucky.
It’s been 1 second since I’ve thought about her. One second. One second.
Sometimes if I’m lucky it’s a few minutes. I say the phrase “my mom used to…” about 5 times a day, at minimum. I try to not talk anymore, about how traumatized I still feel. It’s not healthy to dwell. Suck it up butter cup, this is life, handling death. Some days I do feel a bit stronger, but I actually think that’s the anger. It’s a bit of a trick when you realize what that does. Sneaky. But one day you stop and wonder, whoa why am I reacting like that? And your daughter calls you “angry all the time” and you start to think, hey maybe they see something I don’t. Lessons. Humble lessons. So many times, these past almost 519 days I’ve looked in the mirror and felt hate and spite for the human staring back at me. And no one ever tells you that side of grief. No one ever tells you how losing your person will alter your life so deeply that you have to relearn how to be you. It’s daunting. But you do the work to do and be better.
Because my mama didn’t raise no quitter. So you fake it and hope you can make it.
This is how we go through it guys. One raw and real emotion at a time. It takes courage to say the hard things. But with that courage comes tiny bits of freedom and healing.
Nikki
Thinking of you 💕