September 19, 2024
Dear Mom,
Ten years. A decade. Ten years since I woke up early in the morning to put a few drops of morphine under your tongue before going back to sleep for a little longer. Ten years since I left you in your apartment with Sean, Carly, and your friends knowing that you were going to die. I knew you were going to die, and I left, which some days seems unfathomable. However, I knew if I stayed...you wouldn’t die, you wouldn’t relinquish your soul back to God if I was still there. So, I left, a signal to you that it was time to go. And you did at 3:39 PM that sunny afternoon 10 years ago.
Mom, it's been another “Sad September” as I call it. Sad is not really the word, because there is great beauty in this bittersweet month. Barb Eidson passed away on August 9. I tell you this like you don’t already know, but I know you do know because while she is gone from us, she is now…. with you. Her passing was expected after traversing through dementia these last few years. The last time I saw her was at Harry Irwin’s funeral in 2021. I came over to say hello, I could tell she did not recognize me, but her face lit up with a smile that was just as beautiful as always. She was one of those special people at church, someone who was always there, a pillar as I call them. Do you remember she came to visit you the day before you died? Your friend Sharon Jones was there as well and in your delirious state I remember you marveling at how Barb and Sharon looked like twins. You insisted that I take a picture of them, so I did. And then you requested one of them take a picture of you and your caregiver….me. And so, they did, and that was our last picture together.
Barb was a character, always smiling, always joyful, always guiding me towards the choir room. Even when I would tell her that I did not sign up for choir this time and it was Wednesday night and this was my socializing time, she would smile and put her arm around my shoulder and guide me and other youth into the choir room and we would be in choir, until whatever event Barb needed us to sing for was over. I remember if the phone rang early in the morning at home, you and dad would say there is only one person who calls before 8 AM and that is Barb Eidson, and she is calling because she needs you to do something. So, when Dan Lemen passed away unexpectedly on August 28, just 4 days after I had seen and hugged him at Barb’s funeral, one of my first thoughts was that I guess Barb must’ve needed him to do something. I imagined her smiling and putting her arm around Dan’s shoulder and guiding him towards wherever she wanted him to go. I imagine him saying “But Barb, it’s too early, I am doing other things, I am not done here, I need to be with my family.” And I imagine Barb smiling and saying something about needing his distinctive vocal range in her choir and that it wouldn’t be too long at all before he would be back with his family. I wonder if that’s how time really seems in heaven, not long at all. I wonder if to you there is no concept of time, so to you, it hasn’t been 10 years, to you, you are still with me. Set apart, but still with me. The loss of Dan hit harder than with Barb because it felt so unexpected. How did he get to be 82?! To me he was someone forever maybe in his 60s. Logically I know that can’t be true because you would’ve been 78 this year and he was older than you and dad. Dan had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s though and I had noticed the last time that I saw him, that it was starting to show. Mom, I hate Parkinson’s disease, especially how it seems to affect men. The progressive debility and the slowing of speech which I imagine is incredibly hard in our impatient society who does not want to wait on anyone, the hallucinations, and the personality and behavior changes. I’ve heard so many wives speak of their husbands with Parkinson’s and say “That’s not him, he would never act that way, he would never strike anyone, he would never say those things.” And I tell them that I know, that it’s the disease process, it’s not them, but I know it must be terrifying. I know, but it’s hard to even imagine what it was must feel like to be trapped in the end stages of Parkinson’s disease. Mom, I thank God Dan Lemen will never have to suffer through that.
After Dan died, Aunt Pat wondered to me who was going to be next? Because deaths seem to come in threes. I know there’s nothing scientific behind that theory, but it does seem to happen that way. And then my sister-in-law Pat’s mother passed away in her sleep last Thursday, September 12,…and that was death number 3 for me. I know intellectually and I mean that as logically and scientifically as a geriatric nurse practitioner that her passing was not unexpected, but I know it was for Pat and her family. I know because Pat told me so, that she was not ready even though her mother had been under palliative care for a couple years. Their hearts were not ready. Who is ever ready to lose their mother?
Mom, I’m still trying to sort through my year as a palliative care NP and how success and failure were/are defined. I wish I would’ve had you to discuss it with. From my experience and my perspective, I felt alone and a bit stigmatized in thinking there is a large gray area where we need to meet patients and families where they’re at and not push people to see things through our lens and to do what we think they should do. How do we really define a “good” death and who really gets to define that? I imagine one’s definition might vary greatly if you’ve always been able to trust healthcare providers to do what is best for you…if you’ve had the privilege of every opportunity and intervention presented to you and can pick and choose what you do and don’t want, than if for most of history and your life you were not entitled to options, you did not have a voice, and healthcare providers were not looking out for your best interest. Sorry, kind of went off on a tangent there Mom, but that’s what moms are for, right?
Mom, doing the work that I do has given me a solid amount of experience with aging and death and dying….and living. I had 4 years under my belt when I helped you die at home on hospice, and now I’ve had 10 more years. However, I know when I counsel my patients and their families on these issues, they must look at me like how would this girl even know? What does she know about navigating aging, death, and dying that she didn’t just read in some book or hear in some college lecture? I notice though, I see them soften when I sometimes bring up navigating your death and my experience with that when I was only 32. I was too young to be caring for a dying mother, but I was old enough to be the adult in charge. I know a little bit about the loss of independence, elder law attorneys, advanced directive paperwork, code status decisions, oncologists, hospitals, Medicare, hospice, making final arrangements, funeral homes…but mostly I know personally how confusing and overwhelming it all is, even to a healthcare provider like myself.
Mom, I want you to know that I believe that our experience together and since then has afforded me a profound understanding and empathy I would not have gained any other way but the hard way. So, although it feels strange to say, thank you Mom, I am so grateful. I have always been passionate about older adults but my experience with you, and your death and dying when I was far too young, I believe has provided me with a small, but unique authority and wisdom on the topic in a way that I feel I can relate to both my patients and their families to guide and support them. That is a gift Mom and a very, very valuable one. This topic, this phase of life is difficult, so uncomfortable we avert our eyes and avoid discussion, as if we are invincible if we just ignore it. This process…life…living…is so very challenging, so very, excruciatingly painful at times, but when we talk about these things, when we open our eyes, and ears, and our hearts to one another, when we see one another and really LOOK at the big picture, to really living, even… and importantly…in our final phase of life? Beautiful.
My God, Mom, the view is just so beautiful.
