By Thomas R. Collins
The call came at 2:20 a.m. My mom was about to die.
I’d been preparing for this for the last two years. But I still felt as though a trapdoor was about to open beneath me.
• • •
Fifteen hours earlier, my mom, Susan Clara Nivens, who had severe dementia, had been assigned a nurse from Hospice of Palm Beach County to sit at her bedside around the clock at the nursing home. Her swallowing mechanism had totally broken down, probably leading to a lung infection. Plus, her gastrointestinal system was shutting down. These were all telltale signs of coming death.
I’d had the options of bringing my mom home or admitting her to a hospice center. But a move would have been stressful for her, and the medical staff had convinced me that it was not worth the risk.
That evening, the nurse said that my mom, on a morphine drip, was comfortable. In her notes, she’d said my mom was unresponsive. When I told my mom, “I love you,” she managed to make sounds, low but audible, back to me. The nurse added, “Responds to son.”
Her vital signs were still pretty good and the nurse said she didn’t think anything would happen overnight, although she couldn’t guarantee it. I left at 6:15 p.m. to have dinner at home, expecting that in a day or two I’d start a 24-hour death vigil.
Then the call came. My wife and I bolted. It was early morning on Wednesday, Oct. 19.
When we arrived, my mom’s breathing was much louder and more irregular than before. Her eyes were now wide open. The hand I was holding was limp. Her fingertips were cool and pale blue under the nails.
“I’d be nothing without you,” I told her, staring into her eyes. I said this kind of thing over and over. I called my mom’s two sisters and they talked to her on speakerphone.
I believe my mom heard everything.
Then, suddenly, her breaths grew quiet and shallow, with long pauses between them. I kissed her cheeks and forehead. The hair on the crown of her head was sticking up and I tried to comb it flat with my fingers, but I couldn’t.
At the nurse’s request, I left the room so she could give my mom a Tylenol suppository for her fever.
Three minutes later, the nurse came out to tell me my mom had died.
I gently closed her eyes. I removed the oxygen tube from her nose. I caressed her hair. I touched her cool hands, then found warmer skin farther up her arm. She did not seem dead yet to me, but half-dead and half-alive. But I instantly knew a phase of grief had begun that would continue, to a degree, throughout my lifetime. I cried and cried.
• • •
I had taken refuge in my mom even through the end stages of her dementia.
In the few weeks before my son, Quinn, was born in March, my wife and I, like children, exchanged some harsh words one night after I got her takeout order wrong. I had become jittery about the coming birth and had gotten maddeningly forgetful as a result. I’ve always been scatterbrained, but this was worse.
After the argument, I drove to my mom’s nursing home. I arrived at a quiet time, about 9 p.m., when almost all the residents were in their small, quiet, dark rooms.
My mom awoke and gave me a flicker of pleased recognition. I told her I was worried I wouldn’t be a good father to the baby. I shed a few tears.
I hadn’t needed my mom at full capacity for comfort. Just her presence.
• • •
The funeral in Baltimore brought together family and friends, many of whom had not seen each other in years.
Since then, I’ve been mostly poised, but sometimes weep uncontrollably when alone.
Most often, I am numb and disoriented, feeling that part of me has been marooned, like an astronaut left adrift in space.
In addition to all the work and love my mom gave me, I like to think she has given me one more gift, bestowed right at the very end.
I have always been afraid of dying. But now, I’ve seen death literally occur, except for that very last moment. Because I’ve seen it so close, it’s more known. And the known is always less frightening than the unknown. I’m still afraid of dying, but definitely less so.
Who else could have prepared me? Who else will I likely see die, close-up, in my lifetime? Quite possibly, no one.
My mom, by letting me see her die, has helped ease that fear.
As only she could.
Editors Note: Thomas R. Collins has been sharing the final days of his mother’s life in an occassional series. Read these stories (I, II, III, IV) and his funeral eulogy.
PHOTO ABOVE: Thomas R. Collins dances with his mother, Susan Clara Nivens, at his wedding in June 2009. Family Photo
Comments