Dear Mom
Dear Mom,
I miss you. It has been so long since we got to speak and these last three years have been some of the hardest of my life. I carry a ton of guilt over our final days together. I hope I can explain and that you will forgive me. I am sure you will, based on one of the conversations we had before you went into the ICU, but I still feel I owe you an explanation. I don’t know if you remember your final days, but the last time we spoke you didn’t seem to know who I was. The doctors explained that the toxicity caused by the organ failure was affecting your brain. It was so painful to watch but I didn’t want you to see my fear or sadness. I couldn’t stay long that day because I had to get home to my kids and prepare them to go to their Dad’s. By the next morning I was woken up by an emergency call informing me you had a seizure resulting into you falling into a coma. I can’t explain the emotions that ran through me. I knew I needed to get to you and speak to the doctors, but I also knew these were possibly your last days. I had to prepare myself. When I arrived at the ICU, I was immediately met by a social worker and the resident in charge of your care. They pulled me into a small conference room and sat me down to explain what had happened and that the next 48 hours would be a waiting game. Though they told me you had been intubated and I had already spent days with you where you were being treated with IV’s, nothing could have prepared me to see you on life support. They told me you might be able to hear me, so I sat with you for a while. I did my best not to allow my voice to shake and to stay calm. All I kept thinking about was how scared you must be. You hated going to the dentist or getting needles and over the pervious week I crawled into your bed with you more than once while the nurses administered medication just to try and comfort you. I was sure you hated the tube down your throat, or being strapped to the bed, the sound of the machines, and the lack of privacy. I left for some air and because I was starting to fall apart thinking about what might come next and what I would have to do. It was at this time a nurse pulled me aside and told me to go. She was aware Heather and I came to see you everyday and she could see the toll it was taking on all of us. She knew I was your advocate or power of attorney, she told me to go, that she had you and that you had no concept of time. She told me she was a mom and that she knew you would want me to take a break and allow myself to seek comfort. Her name was Joyce, like your mother’s. So, I listened to Joyce.
The passing of time gets really hazy after that day. I don’t know if it was 24 or 48 hours before the next time I was pulled into that conference room when visiting you. They had your vitals written on the white board and there were still coffee rings on the table from their meeting before I got there. The news they gave me was horrific. You were going to die. There was nothing they could do for you. They could wake you from the coma if I wished so Heather and I could maybe speak to you, but you were going to die. I could not bear the thought of waking you and having you pass in fear. You and I had already had so many hard moments and I didn’t want either of us to experience that and I wanted to spare Heather further pain. We said goodbye to you that night. It was September 5th, 2018. I didn’t sit with you long that day. I kept coming and going, I would hold your hand then leave for a bit then come back and hold your hand. If I am honest, I looked more at your hand in mine than at you. I was reeling with all the responsibility, and I didn’t want the image of you in that bed to be how I saw you forever. I question all the time whether that was the right choice or if I should have just allowed myself to fall to bits and sob at your side? I felt at the time you needed me to take care of Heather, of your parents, of your grandchildren and of all the business of death. I am so sorry I couldn’t handle seeing you like that. I am so sorry.
There has been a lot to grieve and there have been things to rejoice over and I have found both incredibly hard. I spent the next year after your passing tending to the grief of your loved ones. I called your parents that night and broke the news and arranged with Papa the details of your final resting place and how to best cradle Grandma. I made sure Heather was surrounded by strong, caring friends who stuck to her for days. I allowed myself to cry at night away from the children and Heather to shield them from witnessing my pain. Over that year your grandkids, who you called Cutie and Sweetie went on a rollercoaster ride of grief. It was so hard to explain to a 4 and a 3 year old what death means. They had nightmares for a long time about losing me. They feared getting sick ‘cause doctors cannot heal everyone all the time. And to this day, Cutie worries about me getting old every time she sees a gray hair. They are past the worst of it, and they talk about you a lot. They have come to refer to you as Sweet Grandma when they tell a story or ask for the blankets you made them. At first, I found this very hard to hear because they followed it up with “who died”, but that distinction has fallen away and now it is so touching and everyone in their lives refers to you this way when you are spoken about.
I flew to your home town. Drove around with Papa and made all the arrangements for the funeral. I know you didn’t want a funeral but if you were watching then you know it was just family and we tucked you in with your brother and Great Grandma Mona. Please understand, your parents needed the Christian ceremony. I needed to see them have it.
The business of death is exhausting as you know. Ten months before you passed you watched me manage my father’s Suicide and just as I closed that chapter we lost you. I was so not ready to lose you. Every phone call included a detailed explanation and I felt like I had to relive your illness and death over and over. I think you would be proud to know that through it al,l Heather and I have grown closer and when I couldn’t be present as a mom she was often Super-Aunt. During all of it, my life was changing and my family was growing. I am so grateful you had the chance to meet Ryan and the boys. That you made sure I had your blessing. I am grateful they were present during this difficult time for me and the kids. Cutie and Sweetie felt surrounded by even more love and more kids giggling is the best medicine and motivation to keep moving forward.
Last summer I was starting to feel like myself again. Working out how to mom without my mom. I was beginning to see hope as more than a four letter word. Ryan and I had lived together for more then a year by this point and the kids were all getting on well. Ryan had asked me to marry him and I was feeling safe enough to plan a wedding even in the midst of a world wide pandemic. There was overwhelming uncertainty and chaos daily. I remember thinking often how it would have been hard if you had got your transplant. You would have had to tuck yourself away from the world and lived so carefully isolated from Heather, the kids and myself. We have felt guilty more than once for thinking it a small blessing that you haven’t had the worry about navigating recovery during these times. Grandma and Papa really struggled, though he never let on until the day my phone rang. The news was Lung Cancer and he had only been given weeks to live. He told me it was up to me to carry the family and how much he trusted me. I want to tell you how grateful I am for the belief he had in me, but by this time I was exhausted from all the loss. The weight of responsibility has felt crushing and I have felt less like family and more like the Grimkeeper’s administrator.
I pray the kids are right and that there is a heaven and that you, Papa and even Dad are all wrapped in love together surrounded by family and looking down on us. But my faith has been shaken and I don’t know what to believe. I do know this right now, me and God are friends off for the time being. It might be a break, it might be a breakup, only time will tell. I don’t want you to worry because of this statement. I am not lost. I know exactly who I am. I am however, finding it difficult to live without you all. There are moments where I feel like no one knows me but me now. I don’t have a village to help guide the kids and teach them the morals and values that built the foundation of our family. I have felt very alone even when surrounded. I find it hard to relate to other people my age because, while they worry about their job performance or if their kids have had 4 to 6 servings of vegetables, I worry about failing to get up off my knees. Failing to live again after all this loss. Failing to let my kids truly know me. I fear I am not strong enough. As I type that, I can see you sitting there giving me that look. The one where you purse you lips then smirk and tilt your head to the left. That look that says “Don’t doubt yourself, ‘cause I don’t!” Guess that is why I am writing this letter. I needed to see that look. I couldn’t just have dinner with you and see it and I needed to see it. Now I guess, in a way, I have.
It just dawned on me how I reach for you when I need you all the time. I plan a trip to the mountains every year so I can stand in your favorite place. I fill my house with carnations on Mother’s Day each year. I even tattooed some on the inside of my left arm, so you are always at my side. I buy something pretty and go out to dinner with Heather for your birthday like we did, and the kids and I sing as loud as we can as often as we can in the car. Heather and I turned your earrings into pendants. And I get Ryan to take me on long drives when I am feeling overwhelmed or confused. So, I guess you are right, don’t doubt. I will be ok. I already am, I just miss you.
Your Girl,
Stacey