My mom, the judgmental yet caring rock that for so many years probably dreaded her youngest son going his own crazy ways. She always had so many words, things I should fix, in myself, in my friends, in my work life. She always had an approach; she always had an answer. They weren't polished, they even tending to be a bit uh, abrasive. She taught me probably one of the most important things that makes me what I am today, conviction. To stand for what I believe in. Believe in impossible things, believe in the most logical things. But to believe, that was important. To have some faith, a family that spent so many years living as heathens, disgusted by going to church, to still have some faith, trust in a higher power that is beyond us.
Over a Thanksgiving weekend 2 and one-half years ago, mom decided that she needed to go to the hospital. As usual, my brother and I were what felt like the last to know. We got a phone call from her neighbor who took her in to the hospital. Kathy, the neighbor next door called, if she is calling me it is certainly not good, she would call for 2 things, tech support, or a crisis, it was, sadly the latter of the 2. My mom had apparently been in the hospital for more than a day, maybe more. She "has a problem with her pancreas, they are doing x-rays" she just needed to let you know what's going on" as I hear her talking in the background. She was already there long enough to have had enough tests to determine she had pancreatic cancer. As I do in my life, from that minute forward I already started playing out how this would unravel for the next year. Imagining the pain and suffering she would go through. Imagining how this would all play out. Imagining the end and how much I hate ends. I was devastated. I imagined a battle that would drag on for months, the radiation, the chemo, all the things that you hear about, see firsthand. My mom made it through 2 chemo treatments, I was with her for the second, her last one. One thing that always concerned my mom, her hair. She was always so worried about it falling out. I repeatedly told her that as a bald dude, I have no fucks to give whether she has a single hair on her head if she makes it. I was told by others that it not very inconsiderate to feel on her behalf, I kind of had no fucks to give over that. But that God-damned hair, it really mattered to her. After some miserable days at home afterwards she knew, she didn't want to continue. I was mad, I was mad at her, how fucking dare she give up. I don't believe I ever got that choice when I ever confided in her. This was different, and I get it. It's not like you have much of a chance with this type of cancer. But to me there was a chance, hell, maybe she could be immortal. There's always a little chance. This just wasn't our reality, and I was angry about it. Still am today. Will be for a while. She gave up the fight to live the rest of her days doing it her own way, her conviction led her to this choice. This is when I had to accept that my mom is living her life on her terms, and I should accept that I would probably handle it the exact same way if these odds were piled up against me.
A year went on, life just continued. Kids and I visited every week, I did the odds and ends around the house, got the occasional call for a thing to fix around the house. Everyone got to just continue, like it wasn't even a thing. Mom got to make her goofy jokes, make bizarre observations, say all the crazy things that she would always say. Do all the crazy things. COVID-19 slowed a lot of things down, mom was used to being a homebody. Chris and I did some of the chores that would keep her from being in crowds. My mom, the enduring person she has always been, just kept on doing what she could do. When I asked her how she was feeling her consistent answer was always "I can't complain." I am sure she had many complaints, none of them I was ever going to hear about. Mom had a big complex over being a burden to others. Hell, that's why we got the call from her neighbor when this all started.
It was closing in on December of 2020, it had been over a year since the diagnosis, from what seemed to be a non-eventful unchanging year, beside increasing doses of Morphine per day, she stayed pretty stable. Then she got tired. She was thinner, lost well over 50-70 pounds on what was already a pretty small frame of a body she had. When I came to the house with the kids for Monday dinner, we always found her on her couch laying down, covered up with a blanket, occasionally wincing when she shuffled. The deconstructing side of me was constantly trying to figure out what was happening, what to expect. As the doctors explained early on, she was already past stage 2 when they found it, it was already invading vascular parts around the affected area, already spreading. This no longer treated tumor was spreading, consuming all the energy she was bringing in, it was winning now. Every week I came over, she was more and more tired. I knew, Chris knew she only had weeks left, we talked about it. We decided we needed to start checking in on her every day, one of us, rotate the visits as much as possible.
She was fast to fall, it was heartbreaking to watch. Her last night on her own she was trying to get off the couch to use the bathroom and fell on the floor and couldn't get back up. She also tried to get her dog, Joy, outside to use the bathroom, she fell in the garage and the neighbor found her on a check in, Chris and I began rotating overnights at mom's house, she needed help the whole time now. It didn't take long before Chris's aversion to wanting to see this task through, calls wondering if mom should go to hospice instead of being at home. I continued to press back telling his that that was not what she wanted to do, she wanted to be home, period. Traci's interjections into calls were getting more and more increased, she was speaking in her overpowering voice behind Chris voice with her opinions and ideas, Chris mostly reiterated her thoughts on the matter, as if they were his ideas. This was not a new thing. I told him that if he was going to go this avenue, I would stay at her house at full time before I ever agreed to that. Chris would rather send my mom off to die than deal with it firsthand. This has been his approach since 1984, but it was probably longer than that just never reared its head until then.
Chris made it through his first or second night at her house, I can't recall, this time he was relieved to have his shift end. She was getting worse, less coherent. He was ready to hand off responsibility to hospice. Not to be completely averse to the idea I figured it was probably not a bad idea to see what our options are. Chris was going to make some calls and see what was possible. This was going to be the day mom had her sisters and family over, it was getting more and more to appear that this may be the last day she will recognize anyone in the room, let alone talk to them. That afternoon, cousins and aunts made it over, Jamelah got up to see us as well, I picked up the kids to say their goodbyes to mom, the time was running out.
By evening everyone left, it was just mom and me. Mom still able to speak, we did the best we could between bouts of sleep to talk about family, life, regrets, good things, bad things, any things we could think of. I wish I could tell you that was for hours and hours, but I know it was more like 10 minutes on, 50 minutes off, sleep, meds, repeat. My forever chats were going to be limited to tens of minutes at best. "If you can think of it, you better ask now, or it will never happen". "Why can't you think of anything?"
Every few hours or so more and more questions were coming up, hospice, according to what I hear at least, was very responsive to Chris and his questions, whatever those were. My experience with them was quite different. Was calling them to have them call Chris instead. Sometimes not getting calls at all
In dorky fashion, I was logging this struggle in Outlook, I had a feeling this was going terribly
I look back at those notes and it comes back to me, her pain was increasing, she wanted my help, I had questions, they weren't answering, when they were answering it was incomplete answers. The elephant in the room was this: They were getting an assload of phone calls from me, they were occasionally calling back, no-one was showing up. I was on my own, calling Chris was futile, either she gets into hospice, or he cannot deal with it, at one point I even yelled at his to shut Traci the fuck up because these choices were ours, not hers, that was the last I heard of her through this, I really needed that break. The night was not going to involve sleep.
I held her hand, I was making up a drug cocktail the best I could as they described. Chris called back in the morning to try to strongarm me into doing a hospice, I refused. In the last few hours Chris was on a mission to find something that would absolve him from having to do another shift with mom. While he showed up late trying to find a way out, it was moms time. She held my hand, Joy sat on her lap. We talked about how she raised me, I said I was proud of here, and that she did a wonderful job bringing me up. There may have been bad times, but she always did her best to make sure I would turn into a responsible adult. We looked into each other's eyes, I told her again, we will be okay, my family will be okay, we will land, we will all be the best people we can be, she said "good, love you guys". She lost her strength, her arm fell, her grip loosened. She left me. I closed her eyes; she could finally get a good night's rest. Joy stayed by her side. I didn't let go of her hand for another 20 minutes. I cried the whole god damned time. I called Chris to tell him to quit shopping for hospices, the battle was over.
When it was all said and done, the Hospice admitted they fucked up, after 2 phone calls someone was supposed to show up and help, I was on the hook, on my own with mom for a 12-hour struggle. Chris was sleeping or hospice shopping, hospice called me on the phone a few times offering me nothing. I was the one that helped mom land, she did it with grace and a shitload of dignity. One of the bravest women I have ever met. I love you mom, miss you every day.
