Moving Beyond Grief and Through The Holidays

saying goodbye to my Mom ...

Caregiving. It’s not a job you sign up for, not a job you choose. Instead, it chooses you. You take it on, one day at a time.

Ten years ago, I moved away from my hometown. When the time came, by default, it made me a caregiver from afar, while my sister dealt with the day-to-day.

Which is harder? Which is more challenging? Pluses and minuses to both.

My sister and I had a challenging relationship with our mother. We called her Dr Jekyl/Mr Hyde. She changed consistently, depending on the day. When we chatted on the phone, I’d ask: Who is she today?

Yet maybe that’s every mother/daughter relationship. It’s a unique bond, one that you get one of, one that will carry you for life.

The call came in a week before Thanksgiving. The hospice nurse told my sister, “Who needs to be here?” So I went, back home, staying with my sister, spending days in her assisted living room where hospice was there to help.

We watched Christmas movies and brought in takeout.

We chatted.

We loaded Mom up into a wheelchair and walked outside on the truly beautiful days.

She smiled. She said, “I love you.” Over and over again.

That was taxing. Dr Jekyl/Mr Hyde was easier. It’s who we knew, who we’d lived with for decades. This new woman, this “new” Mom, we enjoyed her, if only for a while.

The days moved on.

She stabilized. She held her own.

So I went home, back to my home, 1200 miles away. Knowing it would be a short time, then back again.

Except the phone call came quicker than we anticipated. “She’s gone.”

She slipped peacefully away one morning. No fanfare. We weren’t there.

Assisted Living

Five years of assisted living. It wasn’t planned. Just happened.

2020 was a nightmare.

My sister struggled to take care of it all, all while tucked into staying home, staying in place. Her husband battled cancer in a medical disaster that didn’t make sense.

Then, Mom. She fell. And we navigated a hospital, rehab, through phone calls and drop-offs because no one was allowed in.

She couldn’t go home, so we found assisted living, in June 2020, the height of the unknown. I drove to Denver. I had to move Mom by myself, from rehab to assisted living, with rules upon rules to navigate. A two-hour window to get her in. Then, back to phone calls and video calls she really didn’t understand.

And there she stayed because there was no alternative.

She couldn’t return home, not to a multilevel home where an accident surely would happen again.

She couldn’t live on her own - she needed help, even on a small level.

My sister and I talked weekly about alternatives. I’d visit, looking for options. We toured independent living, apartments, other assisted living facilities. We looked all over Colorado, near my sister. We looked in Oregon, near me.

So the weeks went by, turned into months, turned into years.

I think about that now, knowing it was for the best, yet wondering what the alternative is.

I couldn’t live with her. We were like oil and water.

But she was my Mom. Someone I know was born before her time. In another situation, she would have been someone very different.

She was strong, fierce, a rebel. Feisty - definitely. Stubborn - you bet. And one of the most beautiful writers … if only she’d released that to the world.

But she was before her time. Unsure of how to put her gifts out into the world. Stayed private, because.

Oh, what she could have done if she had been released into the world. She had a gumption that could have taken her far …

She Gave It To Me

I think of my own drive, my own strong will. My go-go-go approach to the world. A world where I was given opportunity.

“You can be it all as a girl!”, she told me so many times. Knowing she had her dreams of college taken away - “You’re a girl; you’ll just get married anyway.”

Life. It’s funny, isn’t it?

But these are the things I think as I move through the days of December, one day at a time, getting it all done.

The call came in. “She’s gone.”

And we moved into action.

Clearing out of assisted living.

The notes of love from assisted living staff who truly loved her. Minutes spent with caregivers as they shared stories. Moved “stuff” into my sister's basement, to deal with another time …

Phone calls. Plans crafted. Flights booked.

To give Mom her final request - to be buried in the Midwest, by her husband, her sister, her parents. On a small piece of land overlooking town.

Cold, oh, so cold.

Talking with friends and relatives who showed up from afar. Traveling trails I hadn't been on since my high school days. Seeing things through a child’s eyes … and they are so different now.

But … life.

Mom got one. Her dates are sealed … birth, death.

I get one.

I’m touched by my Mom. She gave me her all, everything she had to give. I know that, even if our “oil and water” relationship prevented something different.

She gave to me - my sister and I - all she could as a Mom.

And it was good enough.

Because who would I be without?

That’s what I have to carry forward. It’s what built me into the ME I am today. And will carry me forward, for all the days of my tomorrow.

And for that, I’m grateful.

I love you, Mom.