Still, each night we'd gather in front of her television for her favorite show, Wheel of Fortune. We even entered her name in case it was chosen to win the $5,000 they gave some lucky viewer every night. She figured out the puzzles before the contestants and still could laugh at the host Pat Sajak. My brother came to visit, the baby in the family. He made fun of the peanut butter jar in her kitchen, the 48-ounce size. "Costco," I said, but I knew it was more, the size of the jar almost a superstitious insurance against her future.
The bleeding recurred, despite all the medications. Another trip to ER, this time they did more tests, an MRI. "No blockage," the young doctor said. Mom and I were happy to hear that news. But there were masses, on her left ovary, her pancreas and her spleen. Much more going on than doctors had feared. Probable metastasized ovarian cancer.
They sent her back to the nursing home. Her age, her condition, there was no possible treatment. Palliative care is what the doctors recommended. The shock, it took a few days to settle in. Mom asked, "Am I that bad?" My denial now facing its greatest test. This sharpness in my chest. The only answer I could come up with was that no one knew for sure.
That was true, wasn't it? No one did know for sure. And that doctor, hadn't he said, these masses probably had been there for some time. I grasped at those straws.
Mom signed on for hospice. "I'll go in style," she said, after they promised her it would mean extra care, nurses and even a guitar playing pastor. And some people outlasted the six months, went off hospice. This could still be her home, I could still hang on for an unknown amount of time.
Her scooter was the next to go. She was too weak, too dizzy to drive it, even with portable oxygen. We brought in her big wheelchair, the one we'd only used in her previous convalescences. Now she was just like all the other residents.
Then, they had to take out her special chair, had to move in one that had a motorized automatic lift. The hospital bed had to be pulled away from the wall for aides to be able to reach on both sides to help her up. Her bedside table had to go.
One by one most of her things had to be removed from the room. An ache deep inside me that only grew deeper with each item removed; The closet still bursting with clothing, clothing even she now never expected to be able to wear. Nightgowns most of the time, meals to her bedside.
We developed a new ritual, right after Wheel. Before I would leave each night, I'd make sure she felt tidied up, in case the help was late in getting to her. I'd tuck her into her hospital bed and bring her favorite lavender soap and washcloth to her side. The soap lather silky, the warm washcloth would glide across her forehead, easing deep lines. My mother, my rock, the home I always returned to. Words we never said, not the family way.
Then, right before her last night, my fingers trembling when I lifted the oxygen tubing and dabbed underneath on her cheek. She hadn't eaten in three days and was even rejecting water. The scent was sweet, the French lavender. Then gentle on the other side, down to her chin, her open palms. That was when she gave me the gift, the gift to go on without her. Her eyes were moist when she said, "This makes me feel so secure."
Those words, the ache in my chest, lifting as warmth instead spread inside me.
The next day she waved at me through her window. Pillows all around her. When I got inside, she asked me what time it was. I looked at her big silver man's watch, a Timex with metal expandable band that she had bought long before because the numbers were big enough for her to read. "Five," I told her and she asked, morning or night.
My brother called and I told him how she was fading. And suffering now. Bubbling at the lips. Drugs to deaden pain. He said, "Tell her, if she wants to, to catch the bus."
Still the nurses didn’t think she would go that night. I was exhausted from weeks of this and went home. The call at a 3 a.m., the call no one ever wants to get. She had died.
When I got there, my drive through the dark, the caretaker led me down the long hall, my heart in my throat. I turned the corner into her room. No way I could prepare for this. Mom gone, no color left to her face.
Her arms were still warm when I slipped off the last thing for her to lose, the big silver Timex watch. I slipped it on my wrist.
©2016 Sonya Zalubowski for SeniorWomen.com
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