My mother died recently. November 21st to be exact and I watched her take her last breaths. It was peaceful. Her chest rose and fell, rose and fell….and it was done. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t wheeze. Truth be told, had I not been watching her chest, I would have missed it. But that’s how it went. I got up after a few seconds realizing her chest didn’t rise again, put my hand on her chest, my face close to her face, and said, “Mom, are you still here?” She wasn’t. I instantly looked up at the clock…11:10 p.m. Whew, she died less than an hour before my youngest son’s birthday. That was the second gift she gave to me in those last few days.
To say my mother and I weren’t close is a gross understatement. We weren’t…anything. We weren’t family. We weren’t friends. We weren’t anything. We had no relationship at all. And yet, when I got the message that my mother was asking for me, I went from Germany to Iowa within 24 hours of being requested. I don’t know why. Some sense of responsibility? Maybe.You see, I knew something that very few other people would allow themselves to acknowledge about my mother: She wasn’t getting into heaven. She wasn’t even close. My mother loved being ugly to people. She enjoyed causing hurt. She loved using people’s love for her as a weapon against them. I was actually a fortunate one because I didn’t love her. No, our relationship never got that far.
She gave birth to me — that much is true — and must have taken care of me, at least in some sense when I was very young since, you know, I’m here. When I was five, however, she lost custody of my brother, Michael, and I and fell out of my life. Scratch that. She didn’t fall out of my life. She walked out of our lives. It was a choice. She also made the choice to take her entire side of the family away from us as well. She told them that my father had kidnapped us and she didn't know where we were. It was a choice. A choice she made over and over again.
I tried in adulthood to reach out to my mother, to get to know her. This never faired well. My mother would be amenable to it for a month or two and then just stop taking my calls, answering my emails, delete me off Facebook. Luckily for me, it didn’t change much about my daily life since she never stayed around long enough for me or my family to get used to her. I have four children. None of them ever got used to her. In fact, I doubt any of them, minus my oldest son, even remembers her.
So how was it that when I got notified that my mom was asking for me, I came? I had to. I don’t want to be anything like my mother and not going would have been being like my mother. You see, I believe in the intentions of a person. I believe the reason someone does something is far more important that what they actually do. My mother intended to hurt people on the way out. I had heard her several times over the years make comments about how this person or that person would not be notified when she got sick, that they were not to be allowed at her funeral, that sort of thing. And I remember always thinking, “I wonder if she really believes that she’s going to be let into heaven when the last things she intends to leave people with on earth is turmoil and heartbreak and ugly.” It was like she was oblivious to the fact that those actions would be judged along with the rest of the ugly she had caused over the years. Somehow she thought she could go out breaking someone’s heart and run straight into Heaven’s gates. I’m not a Bible-thumper by any means; but I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.
So I went because on the flip side of that, as strongly as I believe that she couldn’t leave with ugly and expect a heavenly invite, I also believe that it would have said something about my character had I been willing to deny her the possibility of peace before her death. I don’t know that I believed she would find it. And to be clear, I didn’t think then nor do I think now that I owed my mother my presence or anything else for that matter. I believe very strongly in the consequences of our actions. It was not my responsibility to ensure my mother found peace. My mother had 66 years to make peace and to repent. She just didn’t. My mother was always far more interested in appearing a certain way than actually being that way. I think I truly believed that she just wanted it to appear that she had made amends with all of her children instead of really making amends. She somehow felt that her place as our mother, regardless of her unwillingness to actually be one, meant that we had to come. I went because I thought I should. Period.
And so I went. My older brother tried to prep me for the visit. I don’t think he really wanted me to go, one, because he wasn’t going to be there to help shield the ugly and support the loneliness that he knew I would feel, but also because as he said, “people dying can be really mean.” Michael knows more than anyone the pain my mother has caused. He’s been privy to it. He has walked me through it time and again, explaining things I don’t understand, challenging me to be a better person while allowing me to deal with it in my way. To say he is fiercely protective of me is an understatement; and yet, when it comes to certain things in life, there is no protection.
The travel from Germany to Iowa was tedious. It was long and unremarkable, giving me plenty of time to consider and prep for every scenario. Because I have pretty much the same relationship with my mother’s youngest two children as I have with her, I had very little information aside from what hospital she was in. I didn’t know if I would be allowed alone time with my mother. I didn’t know if I would be allowed to stay in hospice with her. I didn’t know what the rules were, or even what the other two were doing. It made planning extremely hard. And because I know that I am not considered part of the family, I was very aware that I could overstay my welcome and that there were unspoken things that were not my “place.”
I am very fortunate in that my oldest son goes to school about three hours from where my mother was in the hospital. Because I had no idea how long my mother had, my husband and children stayed in Germany and I went alone. My oldest son was adamant that I would not go into that situation with so many people who have tried to hurt and humiliate me alone. So he met me at the airport and followed me the three hours to my mother’s hospital. He didn’t go for my mother, a grandmother that has refused a relationship with him, a woman who has refused to go to events because he (not me) was going to be there. He went for me, and me alone.
By the time, we reached Iowa City, it was almost 9 p.m. My mother’s youngest daughter waited near the hospice entrance to lead us to my mother’s room. When we went in, it was packed with people. I’m told my mother was anxiously awaiting my arrival. I don’t know if that’s true; but I know that my aunts and uncles were. The room was packed. Several of them, who had travelled a great distance, had delayed leaving so they could be there to witness this interaction. Although I know they had the best intentions, I felt on display. My mother and I hadn’t had any type of communication, minus polite small talk at an event we both attended, in over three years. I’m doubt any of my aunts and uncles that were there realized that this was not a typical reunion. From what I have gathered from most of my aunts and uncles, they are a tight-knit group, who are genuinely there for each other regardless of issues. This is a foreign concept to me. I didn’t have my mother’s side of the family in my life growing up and have never had an example of family. I felt (and was) an outsider. And to be perfectly honest, I didn’t even know who most of the people in the room were.
Even though the room was packed, I went straight to my mom’s bed. She looked at me, smiled, and said, “Hi, Steph.” I smiled and then burst out crying. I want to say it was the fatigue of traveling for almost 24 hours or just the pent up emotion of the moment. But the truth of the matter was as soon as I saw her, I realized how close to death she really was and I was overcome with emotion. My mother was dying and she wanted me there.
She was gracious. She rubbed my head and smoothed my hair. She said hello to my son. He gave her the expected emotionless hug. My family, most of who were foreign to me, greeted me and left soon after. It was at this point that I had no idea what to do. I didn’t know what I was expected to do. I have learned in the past dealing with my mother’s younger children that everything I do is looked under a microscope and then analyzed and criticized with assumptions of the worst. So I just stood.
They started getting ready for bed and it was clear that they were staying in the room with mom. I’ve never experienced a hospice situation but University of Iowa Hospital really did everything to ensure that we were comfortable. My mom’s youngest son and his family pulled out the couch. There were recliners that recline to almost laying positions. Roll-aways were brought in, and I was allowed to sleep in the recliner right next to my mother’s bed. By this point I was exhausted. I had been traveling well over 24-hours and was both emotionally and physically beat. My mother put her hand by the openings in the railing of her bed so we could hold hands, touch fingers, be close.
There really wasn’t a lot to be said between us. I had never expected or received any type of explanation, apology, or any other communication about things that had transpired between us over the years. I’m not sure my mother was that type of person. And yet, here we were, mother and daughter who had spent very little time together in our lives, holding hands and drifting off to sleep. I don’t remember ever having slept with my mother. Because she left when I was so little, I have very little memory of her at all. So I don’t know if this is the first time we had slept in any form of embrace. I would assume not. I mean, what mother doesn’t rock her child to sleep, lay down with them when they’re afraid, or just want this person that they made next to them for both the comfort of the parent and child? I would assume that at some point in my very young life, that must have happened. And yet, here I was experiencing it for the first time.
The next morning, Sunday, the nurse came in to clean mom’s sores. My mother had open sores on her legs. Her kidneys were failing and couldn’t release toxins so they were manifesting into sores on her legs. “Sores” is putting it mildly. They looked like 3rd degree burns on her legs. I was told they had started near her ankles and had spread up all the way up both of her legs. In fact, to treat them, they had had consulted the burn unit. To clean the wounds, the gauze had to be removed, a solution had to be poured on the wounds, and the gauze reapplied. This may sound relatively easy. It was not. First of all, my mother had the wounds on the fronts and backs of her legs. This meant cleaning the wounds on the front of her legs and then turning her to the left and then to the right so the wounds on the back of her legs could be cleaned as well. Applying the gauze was also a struggle because it wasn’t patches of gauze or even the gauze that you wrap around an ankle or a wrist. The gauze was more like a pant leg that had to be put through her very swollen feet and then pulled up her legs.
When they cut the gauze off my mom’s legs, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop the tears. My mom looked at me and said, “It doesn’t hurt, Steph.” From what I understood, my mom had been taken off the pain meds. She said they made her groggy and she wanted to be aware in her final days. How they didn’t hurt, I can’t explain. I do know she had moments, long moments sometimes, of discomfort. When we had to turn her to wash her legs and change her bedsheets were some of those moments. I would grab her hands and have her look at me. I would talk to her, ask her questions, threaten to sing to her (which she’d reply with a hearty, “NO!”) and just try to help get her through those moments.
The rest of the day is a blur. I remember visitors coming in. I think a pastor or two may have come in, some friends and family. I don’t remember much of it because many people that came in didn’t even acknowledge my presence. They would look at me, but then look away. Some gave me the look that told me they had “heard” about me. While my mother’s other two children were being consoled and cared for, checked in on, prayed with and for, I was just….there. Don’t take these words to mean that I was alone though. There were several people who made it a point to ensure they not only acknowledged my presence but actually made me feel like family. They were just few and far between. To be fair, most of the time when mom had visitors I would move from her bedside and allow whoever was visiting to have that space and that time. Sometimes I would go get a coffee, go call my brother, son, or husband, or just sit on the couch in the room and let them visit.
There were several times during that day as well when mom and I were left alone. I expected that if something was going to be said, or if we were going to share some type of moment, it would be when we were alone. I’d sit in the chair next to her bed or stand next to her bed and stroke her hair or hold her hand. I don’t remember talking much. She always perked up when she had visitors but it was exhausting for her. When they left, she oftentimes would nap. I’m not sure exactly when it was but I remember sitting next to my mother’s bed and her youngest son convincing her that she shouldn’t drink Diet Coke anymore. It was a strange conversation to me because we knew that she was dying so to stop someone from enjoying what they loved (and my mom LOVED Diet Coke) in their last days was strange to me. What was interesting about the exchange though was watching my mother. She listened to him scold her about the Diet Coke and how she needed to be more healthy and eat better and take better care of herself. I think he even mentioned taking some sorts of vitamins, and my mother listened to him with this look on her face that I don’t have the words to describe. It wasn’t sad or mad or even a neutral face. It was the face of patience but also of someone who realized that her son hadn’t come to terms with her dying yet and she was’t going to push him there.
I also remember at one point my mother having a resolve that she was going to get up and go to the bathroom. Instead of anyone challenging that or telling her that she couldn’t, everyone told her of course she could get up and go to the bathroom if she wanted to. She never did.
Later that day, maybe early evening, they had a birthday party in my mom’s room for one of her grandsons. I had been told several times that mom wanted to make it past her grandson’s birthday. The interesting thing about that was his birthday is on the 20th. My youngest son’s birthday is on the 22nd; but, of course, no one mentioned that. I don’t say this to be ugly. It’s just a reality that no one knew when my son’s birthday was, least of all my mother. They certainly hadn’t considered the possibility that she could die on her other grandson’s birthday or even that I was going to be away from my son on his birthday. We weren’t considered at all. It was almost comical to watch people’s reaction when they would go on and on, almost bragging, about how my mom couldn’t wait for her grandson’s birthday party and that she was such an awesome grandmother because she wasn’t going to die on his birthday, and how much she loved her grandson, only for me to respond that Paulie’s birthday was two days later. A few of them would realize right away the significance of what they were saying, while others were so entitled to their position that they couldn’t and wouldn’t care less about my son. I’m sure they couldn’t care less if Mom died on Paulie’s birthday because Paulie was just another person in her world, not also her grandson.
So there was a birthday party, for a child that was turning, I don’t know, five? My sister-in-law comes from a large family and a lot of them were there. The difference was they were so warm to me. They went out of their way to introduce themselves to me. They embraced me and told me they were sorry about my mom. Up until that point, the only person who had said that was a very sweet nurse that came in very late at night to check on mom. I was immensely grateful for their kindness.
I’ve always wondered if there’s a moment when you know it’s the beginning of the end. In my mother’s case when the party was over, it was clear she was deteriorating. She was exhausted. She had done what she said. She had made it to his party and physically she started to decline. I don’t remember much about after the party. I think I may have slept on the couch and mom’s youngest daughter slept in the chair next to her. I do know that mom’s youngest son and his family had decided to sleep in the family room.
I think my mom struggled throughout the night. I remember waking up several times and seeing my mom’s youngest daughter shifting my mother, or checking on her. When the morning came, my mom’s demeanor was completely different. She barely opened her eyes. She didn’t want any clothes on. She didn’t want her blanket on. She tried to take the gauze off her legs. She was literally naked to the world and didn’t care in the least. She had enough wits about her to understand that when visitors came, she had to cover up. But as soon as they were gone, or when she was ready for them to leave, she would pull her sheet back down and expose herself. She was literally going out the way she came in.
She would also slouch to one side and she was too weak to move herself back over. I got to the point where I would have her put her arms around my neck like she was going to hug me and then shift her that way. What also changed was my mom’s face. My mom, who had been awake and aware of her surroundings, was now very internalized. She didn’t speak, although she could hear us and would answer and acknowledge us, it was clear that she was elsewhere. This is not to say that she was lethargic or not alert. She was. Just not of her worldly surroundings. She kept her eyes closed most of the time. She would fold and unfold her hands continuously or move her hands above her head and then back down to her lap and then fold and unfold her hands again. She made a lot of different facial expressions and moved her lips, sometimes whispering things sometimes not. There were several times when she would whisper or I would see her lips moving that I would ask her if she was ok or if she was in pain. I would have to ask her several times and she would respond like I was interrupting her and say, “What, what? No, no. I’m fine.” And then she would close her eyes again and be engaged once again in the unknown. It was a strange thing to me and I didn’t understand why and what was going on. And then I just watched her. For a long time I sat next to her bed and watched her without interrupting.
And what I saw was my mother having an experience. It was more than a conversation. It was my mother seeing and experiencing things. I saw her talking to someone. I saw her so fully engaged in whatever was going on internally that she wouldn’t hear us. Whatever was going on, at times made her so uncomfortable that she would fidget. She would have very defensive body language at times and sometimes she would relax. It reminded me of having a hard conversation with a spouse, or with your boss, or a friend that you had a disagreement with. As I watched my mother, I became absolutely convinced that someone was leading her to death, was prepping her, was getting her prepared for her judgement.
And so it went all day, into the night, my mother struggling. Her fidgeting, whispering, facial expressions, leaning, moving her back over and the circle that was that. It’s not true that my mother never took pain meds because at some point fairly early in the day the decision was made to start the morphine. My mother’s youngest children were certain that mom was holding on for some reason, that she was fighting dying. I knew that that was true. She was definitely fighting but it wasn’t dying that she was fighting for.
After the morphine was started, maybe around 8 or 9, her youngest children and myself were around her bed. We were sure she was going to go and the rest of the family was being called in. It was a scene straight out of a movie. She was struggling, seemingly fighting death. There was some Christian song on repeat in the background. Her youngest son was reading scriptures about going into heaven and “God’s children” and having lived a faithful life and being received into God’s kingdom. Her youngest daughter was giving her permission to die, telling her it was ok, that they would be ok. And then they started to pray. Her youngest son was asking God to take her, that she is ready, that she is tired and has been preparing her whole life to meet with him. And as I stood there next to my mother’s bed with my head bowed all I could pray was “God, please don’t take her until she is ready to be received. Please don’t take her until she surrenders, until she is able to come into your arms.” This may seem cruel. But my mother wasn’t fighting death. She was fighting for salvation. At that point, my mother asked to be alone. We walked out of the room. As we walked down the hallway, her youngest son said, “She’s gone. I can feel it.” She wasn’t.
After about fifteen minutes, we went back in the room. Mom looked to be sleeping. She wasn’t. She was resting. Her brothers and sisters started showing up, each coming to mom’s bedside to say goodbye, to talk to her one last time. While her other two children stayed by the bed, I moved to the couch on the other side of the room. I could still see Mom. Although the morphine was making her groggy, she still had moments of awareness. She continuously looked around the room. She would look at her youngest son and smile, her youngest daughter and smile, and then she would look at me, across the room. She would lock her eyes on mine with an intense gaze. She didn’t smile. She stared at me for a long time with an intense look on her face. I wouldn’t say it was anger. It certainly wasn’t love. But it was something, something serious, and intense. I refused to look away. I don’t know what was going on in my mother’s mind, but I was not going to look away. She eventually looked away and continued scanning the room looking for something else. I believe she was looking for my brother, but I can’t be sure. All I know is she repeated this several times, looking at her younger children, smiling, then staring at me intently, and then looking for something else.
By this time her siblings had all spoken to her and my Aunt Mary was adamant that I should be at her bedside, that my place was at her bedside, telling me, “You are her daughter. Your place is at her bedside.” So I went next to her, her younger children on the other side. When I got to her bedside, my mother grabbed my hand and pulled me close to her so that we were inches apart. She opened her eyes and looked at me so intently and started to weep and cry out, “I’m so ashamed. I’m so ashamed. Stephanie, I’m so ashamed.” She said this over and over again. She didn’t reach for anyone else but me. She didn’t look at anyone else. She didn’t call anyone else. It was to me. I knew exactly what my mother was talking about. I knew that this was the moment that I had traveled around the world for and it was happening right now. And although it was in a room full of people, some of which were as near as I was to her, this conversation was between Mom and I. And she kept saying, over and over again, “I’m so ashamed. Stephanie, I’m so ashamed.” I started to cry and said, “No mom, no. You don’t have to be ashamed.” And it continued, “I’m so ashamed.” I finally answered, “Mom, you did the best you could. You did the best you could.”
(I have to pause here to say that I didn’t really believe this, but in the moment of my mother’s pain, it was the only thing I could think to say to comfort her.) And so I said, “Mom, you did the best you could.” She immediately replied, “No, I didn’t, Stephanie. I didn’t do the best I could.”
The significance of this statement cannot be swept over. For the first time in my life, my mother was not only not making excuses, she also wasn’t accepting any excuses. She wouldn’t accept the way out that I gave her in saying she did her best. She rejected it and told the absolute truth. She had not done the best she could and she said it. Over and over. “No, Stephanie. I didn’t do the best I could.”
At this point I was weeping. My mother was weeping, crying out, saying over and over that she didn’t do the best she could. I responded with the only thing I had left to say to her, “Then mom, I forgive you.” I laid across my mom’s lap, crying uncontrollably. My mother kissed my hands and told me she loved me.
In this moment, my mother was so broken and so humble and all I could think in that moment was John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” My mother was finally free. She was finally able to let go of her lies, of her excuses. She could no longer blame or point fingers. She had to take full and complete responsibility for her actions. She had known that this is what judgement meant, and now she was experiencing it. It was unbelievable and beautiful to watch.
And for the first time in my life I was proud of my mother. She laid it all bear. She laid her burdens down. She humbled herself, told the truth, and took responsibility. She made the choice — and don’t get it twisted, it was a choice — to be accepted into the hands of her Savior. I don’t believe for one second that I was the only person or situation that my mother was held accountable for. But I do believe that my mother had her judgment. I believe there was a reckoning and I believe she took her place in God’s Kingdom. And I believe she earned it. She didn’t earn it in life. She earned it in her death.
My mother passed that night, and like I said at the beginning of this, I watched her take her last breaths. She got my first breaths and I got her last. My mother was exhausted. Physically, yes; but spiritually, more. Her work here was done and she slipped quietly into the hands of her Savior.
