Mother was ill on Sunday when she woke up. It appeared to be the stomach flu even though neither dad nor I had had anything like that. However, I kept thinking that maybe one of the hospice people dragged it in with them. I called the nurse on call and she thought the same thing. She ordered something to settle he stomach and mother stayed in bed for the first time in fifteen years of illness, three of the most recent on hospice care.
I had dad move to the study so he wouldn’t catch it.
Monday wasn’t much better. Mother couldn’t suck even ice without having dry heaves. I called her regular nurse. She thought it was just the flu and said we had to wait it out the 24 hours. Hopefully, she would be better in the morning.
I was sleeping in dad’s bed in order to help her on and off the portable toilet if need be and to clean up if warranted. She had a stroke that night. Her speech was slurred. That night the on call nurse told dad and I it looked as though we should prepare ourselves for an end of life experience. Mom seemed to recover a bit the next day. It was the same day the hospice group was going to celebrate with a tea for her and give her an award for being on hospice for three years. She had another stroke that afternoon.
I called my brothers and Jeff, the younger one, and his wife Melissa came to help and lend comfort. I really appreciated it. Having two resident nurses there really gave me a break and more confidence. Mom was coherent enough to recognize Jeff and greet him. I think he was probably the last person she did consciously see. She lapsed into a sleep. We kept her hydrated with little sponges dipped in water and gave her morphine for the pain every hour. I kept music playing in the bedroom. She loved classical.
She would stop breathing occasionally and I would rush to get Jeff and Dad. All the positive energy would burst into the room and she would take another breath and live on.
I told her on April 1st that it would make a good title for my column if she died on April Fool’s Day. I think I caught her smiling in her sleep. I sat by her bed and read to her and kept a cool washcloth on her head.
I called the funeral home to give them a heads up because it was Friday and it looked as though she might leave us over the weekend.
On Saturday morning Terry came to help and we took a bit of a break. Hospice showed up and between all of them and Jeff and Melissa, they cleaned mom up again and got her settled in a nice fresh bed. I was exempt from this process and told to go get some sleep.
When I woke up I thought perhaps I had best look up the funeral policy. They might need a policy number or something. It was a five year payment plan. It was now April 2nd. The plan was dated April 28, 2006. I had paid the last payment the day before and didn’t know it. I went in and told mom it was okay for her to go – I would take care of dad – and hey, the policy was all paid for. She would have laughed if she had been awake. We always used to joke and tell her she couldn’t die because we had to pay off the house.
She died that evening right after dinner. We were all with her. She was home and went in her sleep, just like she wanted to. Mother always did things as she planned. She used to say there were ‘two mean women in town and she was both of them.’ She said she inherited the title from her mom. Guess I inherit from her. Hope I can live up to it.
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