The Death of a Mother Part One: A Series of Goodbyes

I think I can pinpoint the last time she seemed to know who I was. It was about eight months before the end. Up to then, she would eat and drink but really not respond to conversation. But on that day in August, I left work at 4, took the 45 minute trip by train from Crystal City, Virginia and walked the 10 minutes to her home in Tenleytown, Washington, D.C. Washington is traditionally hot in August, and I was sweating when I entered her house. I said hello to her caregiver Christina, and knelt in from of the hospital bed in Mom's living room where she was lying. "Mom," I said, "I'm sorry. I'm sweating, and I don't want to get you wet." She looked up at me and smiled. For the first time in months, she smiled and recognized me. She looked up at me, reached for my face and wiped my sweating brow as she had when I was a boy. It was, I think, the last time she recognized me, the last time I saw her smile, and the last time she was really herself. It was the first goodbye.

After that, except for one or two times--with prompting on Christmas Day she was able to say, "Merry Christmas"--we would visit, talk to her, sit with he and watch tv with her or sit in silence and hold her hand , and she wouldn't respond or even acknowledge we were there. The Monday after Easter, her caregivers told us it would be a matter of days. Christiana called us at 1 a.m. on Easter Thursday to say Mom wasn't breathing. Mom had a DNR (do not resuscitate). We told Christiana not to call 911 but to phone hospice. We then left and drove the generally empty streets, deep in our own thoughts.

The second goodbye was the long goodbye. When we arrived at the house around 1:30 a.m., the door was open. Mom was lying on the hospital bed, covered up to her neck by the coverlet, very still. We knelt and took turns kissing her. When we stood up, I asked Christina when hospice was coming. I had thought they would already be there, establishing time of death. She said she couldn't get through. I went into the dining room to call, and the phone rang and rang until, after 20 rings, it went into voicemail that said our call was important to them and that the next available operator would pick up soon. Elevator music began to play. How many people are calling and queuing up at 1:30 a.m.? And having hospice involved was supposed to make it easy. I hung up, called again and the same thing happened. I let the music play, and after five minutes the call disconnected. Obviously, something was wrong. I called the Virginia office, which answered, and they called the D.C. office and couldn't get through. I suggested that my wife and Christina get some sleep. I called the D.C. hospice number every 15 minutes. Finally, at 5:30, someone picked up. I explained to her what was happening, and she apologized profusely, explaining that their phones had been out all evening. She said someone from hospice would be there in 20 minutes. While we waited, I went back into the living room,, knelt by the hospital bed, prayed, kissed Mom, and ended the second goodbye.

The man from hospice declared the cause of death as 5:30 a.m., even though she had passed away four and a half hours earlier. He said that was the protocol. He asked me questions, called the D.C. medical examiner, gave the information, and told the examiner the cause of death as Alzheimer's Disease. I said, "No, she was never diagnosed with Alzheimer's, only the dementia that happens when you are 102." But he shook his head, indicating that that too was the protocol, making me think that this was inflating the figures for Alzheimer's. He called the funeral home, which in a hour removed her body from her home. 

There followed meetings with the funeral home and the cemetery staffs, the wake, and the funeral, with relatives and friends coming from Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, Florida, Virginia and Ohio. That was the third goodbye, a shared goodbye with loved ones. Things happened with the burial process, of which I'll write more later. I've already posted the eulogy I delivered at the funeral mass.

Then we had to clean out and sell the house, of which I will write more later.

The house sold in September. I turned over all of my keys. I took them one by one from my very crowded key chain--the front door key that Mom always reminded me turned left to open, the key to the second lock that we installed in the front when Mom began to wander, the back porch key, the key to the basement entrance, and the garage key. When I was done, I had just one key left, and it was the one to our own house. A few weeks later, I drove down my mother's street and passed what had been her house. The new owners hadn't moved in, and from the street it looked like the place was still empty. I got out of the car and started to walk to the front door. And then I realized that for the first time since I was six years old, I couldn't go in. As I walked away, I realized that that was the last goodbye.