EEHHH...No title. Just ReadA Story by Carol Cashes A painful event My
mother told me two weeks ago that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer in
2013, and was coming to the point that she would soon require hospice
care.
My
mother is fiercely independent and has always kept her affairs close to her
chest. Too many times to count, I am
only notified of her “business” after the fact.
I understand my mother and, while this can be unnerving at times, I have
always respected her right to privacy, never mind our relationship as mother
and daughter. Blood does not buy you or
entitle you to be privy to all of another’s affairs, and there are matters that
I have not divulged to my mother.
That
she would be coming to the end of her days is not a surprise, either, but the the how of it was a painful blow. She is 78. She has beat cancer five times in the past " losing both her vocal
cords and has had a tracheotomy for the last twenty years"commonly called a
neck breather. she has some heart conditions,
COPD, has had four knee surgeries and suffers from macular degeneration in her
right eye that requires a shot, yes a long-needled shot, right into her eyeball
once a month. I have accompanied her
several times to these appointments and have always felt that if she can bear
it, I can certainly observe. While too
many scenes from the movie franchise Saw initially would race across my mind’s
eye, the first few times, I now observe with a more clinical eye. She has degenerative disease in her neck and
other painful ailments that accompany many of the elderly.
She
will be buried with two of her four children.
My sister died in 2004 of acute pancreatitis directly related to her
alcoholism. She became bed ridden the
last eight months of her life and upon her death weighed sixty pounds. Due to the gallon of Jim Beam ever constant
by her bedside, my mother found her covered in ants. Ants.
In her final months, she was consumed with hate and disdain for myself
and my mother, while we faithfully cared for her, coming to her home twice a
week to bathe and clean her living quarters.
She spewed her poisonous venom from the time of our arrival until we
left and only by my mother’s example of loving one who acts the least lovable
was I able to persevere. The saddest
thing I have ever seen in my life, bar none, was my mother adjusting the straps
of the while nightgown set that we purchased for her cremation. Bent over under the light of a lamp, with
needle and thread, she adjusted the length of the straps to ensure that it fit
her emaciated frame properly"this for a child who expressed hate and distrust
to me of our mother when she was out of earshot. This scene is sometimes unbearable and
unforgiving in its refusal to fade in my memory as time passes.
My
brother, also an alcoholic, found sobriety as he assumed the position of
caretaker for my sister in her final year. They lived together in a kind of harmony in
the small trailer she purchased outright when she received her settlement from
her divorce. He remained in the trailer after her death, maintaining his
independence as his only source of income was Disability through Social Security. In the last ten years, he had undergone five
hip replacements and lived with chronic pain for all of that time. When in September of 2015, he slipped down
the wooden steps of his trailer, he shattered his pelvis. After some time in a rehabilitation center
and, well, some time, his pelvis healed enough to the surgeon to perform one
final hip replacement, this time successfully.
For the first time in ten years, he was becoming pain free and was
optimistic about his simple life. In December of 2016, he died of a massive
heart attack and was discovered by my father and a couple of friends who were
concerned when they observed that his mail and newspapers had not been
collected.
He
was the only sibling I was close to, surprisingly, as he was only 12 when I
left home at 18 and left for anywhere away from here. When I became involved in gold prospecting,
he traveled to Reno, Nevada where I was living at the time and moved in with
me. We found a shared passion and this
cemented our close friendship and blood ties.
He was the only sibling that I shared an “adult” relationship with and
we discovered that we also shared a sharp and sarcastic humor. I loved him as a dear friend and the blood
relationship only served as a bonus.
When
my mother received the call from my father and notified me, I raced to her home
and we sped to a too familiar scene of the coroner’s vehicle and a hearse,
parked almost in the identical locations as the day of my sister’s death. That two of my siblings, two of my mother’s
children had died in the same house was not lost on me and to this day, the
memory of that catches in my throat.
It
is the kind of death my mother is facing that I find difficult to resolve. Her own dignity and acceptance demands no
less of me, and had she died in her sleep, I would mourn the mother of my
childhood and the woman of incredible strength and faith I knew in adulthood,
but lung cancer is not kind. She has
refused all treatment, even simple biopsies that would provide clues to the
extent and possible time limits she faces.
On the day she told me of her condition, she said that she was sure the
cancer had spread to her spine as she was experiencing pain in that area. Her decision to call in hospice is based
solely on the fact that the masses in her lungs periodically squeeze her
esophagus, making it difficult for her to breathe or eat. She has no doubt that this heinous disease is
also present in other organs besides her spine as she is well versed in the
nature of cancer, and especially since she was initially diagnosed in
2013. Her calm demeanor that day, the
day she told me of her certain death, has guided my own behavior"for the most
part. It is the very bad way that she
will go to her God that I am having difficulty resolving.
When
she told me, she also commanded me that no one"NO ONE"was to be told, that it
was her decision alone who, if anyone, would have prior knowledge of the why of
her death. She further confessed that if
she could, she would bar me from telling my husband, but she understands the
nature of my marriage and realizes that is not an option.
As
I previously stated, all arrangements have been made, paid for and there is to
be no deviation of her wishes. There
will be no funeral, only a wake the day before her burial and a small list of
ten people who are allowed to attend.
Her many tradition bound friends will have difficulty understanding
this, but I do not. My only task upon notification
from either hospice or the coroner is to contact her pastor, giving him strict
instructions that NO flowers are to be sent to me or her home and positively NO
food, either brought to her home or mine, nor to any impromptu “memorial” her
church might think they should observe.
She is quite adamant about this and I am grateful.
I
debated this past week whether or not I should post what I have no choice but
to write about. I decided, and am hoping,
that no one knows my mother, and therefore this is an anonymous forum in that
respect.
I
anticipate some hard days for me emotionally, again, directly in connection to
the difficult and painful manner of my mother’s death. I am also so, so grateful that I joined this
site prior to knowledge of this as the writing of the coming days is certain
and necessary.
Thank
you to all of you who have welcomed me and made me feel that I could disclose
and write about this coming painful time freely and openly. I need this forum…and you.
© 2017 Carol CashesAuthor's Note
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Carol CashesBiloxi, MSAboutI'm very cynical, jaded, just this side of bitter and the only reason I haven't crossed that line is a good man loves me. I am extremely empathetic, but seldom sympathetic. I can be a ferociously lo.. more..Writing
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