She Was
September 25, 2006
Her name was Doris Ann, but no one in our family called her that, except my father. To everyone else, she was Sissy, or Sis for short.
She had brown hair that had darkened from auburn as she got older and brown eyes that always held a spark of happiness, even when she was sick. She was funny in a goofy, self deprecating way that made you laugh both at her and with her at the same time.
She was a devoutly religious woman who found true comfort in her faith and spirituality without being a hypocrite. I know that her beliefs gave her peace. She wasn’t perfect, I can accept that. But I feel that knowing and acknowledging her imperfections is a way of honoring her memory more truly than canonizing her would be.
My mother died seventeen years ago today. She was six years older than I am at this moment. These anniversaries of her death and her birth sometimes come and go now without me paying tribute. Some years I feel it keenly a week before the date, suffering insomnia, malaise, sadness. Others, I wake up three days after the date has passed and realize that I let it go by.
I have always believed that to be a good thing, but this year feels different. It is inconceivable to me that she has been gone the same amount of time that she was in my life. Time and memory can play tricks on your perception, but even after seventeen years, I still know what her voice sounds like and how her eyes looked when she smiled.
The day before she died, I visited her in the hospital. We spent the entire day together, just the two of us. I brought takeout pizza with all her favorite toppings and we sat on her hospital bed eating and talking. We walked down the hall to get soft serve ice cream cones, looked at old photo albums and talked about everything under the sun, except her illness.
She was terminal at that point, and she knew it. Because my parents mistakenly wanted to shield their children, my sisters and I were never prepared for the eventuality of her death. I never had a chance to talk to her about it and that is my biggest regret.
The only time that we even came close was on that day. She took off her engagement ring and gave it to me. I told her I didn’t want it because she was going to need it. I know she must have been frightened, but she never showed it.
Although I didn’t know it would be my last day with her, I wouldn’t change a thing about how it unfolded. It was perfect. I don’t remember how I said goodbye to her when I left that evening. I wish that I could.
The following morning, I had just clocked in at work when I was called to the front over the loudspeaker. The manager handed me the phone. It was someone from the hospital. My mom had slipped into a coma over night and could I come right away?
I arrived to find her unconscious, her breathing labored, no trace of the laughing, peaceful woman I had left 12 hours earlier. I stayed in her room for the next 13 hours, sometimes holding her hand as people came and went - my father, the hospice worker who had been helping drive her to radiation appointments, friends from church.
Halfway through that day, I spoke the last genuine prayer I have ever said. I asked God to take my mother and end her suffering. I was angry, furious, that she had been so faithful and this pain and indignity was her reward.
Late in the evening, the bustle of constant visitors had slowed. My father had gone to the cafeteria and I was alone in the room with my mother. I sat by her bed and whispered softly to her to go. I told her it was okay and we would be all right if she didn’t stay. She never woke from the coma, but somehow I know that she was aware of my presence.
An hour or two later, I was relieved when her labored breathing seemed to slow and calm and the only sound in the room was the respirator quietly, steadily pumping. A nurse came and asked me to slide out of the way so she could check vital signs. I was angry and asked if they couldn’t just leave her be since she seemed to finally be resting comfortably
I lay her hand on the bed and the nurse took her wrist to check her pulse. It didn’t become clear to me that she had already slipped quietly away until the nurse, not finding a heartbeat, called the doctors to her room. It seemed surreal and anticlimactic as the doctor checked for a heartbeat, looked up at the clock on the wall and said 12:02.
I don’t know what I had been expecting. Was I looking for a sign that she had gone? I had been waiting for a sonic boom, a voice from God and what happened instead was that she died calmly and peacefully, while I was holding her hand. And I never knew.
I hold the gift of that day as one of my greatest treasures. I feel privileged to have been there, to have had her hand in mine. It seems fitting that she ushered me into this world, and I got to help her as she left it. We were physically connected at both moments, seventeen years apart. We are still connected in a different way, seventeen years later.
She was a gentle, kind spirit. She was a strong, independent woman. She was a sister, a friend, a daughter, a mother. I am here because she was.
Reprinted with Premission: Original Post April 2, 2006
September 26th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Beautiful.
September 26th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
How Lovely.
September 26th, 2006 at 7:21 pm
You made me cry, but thank you for showing me that I’m not crazy, that some have been able to hold their mothers as they leave us.
September 27th, 2006 at 4:13 pm
Ah, Tammie, you made me cry. Your mother has a lovely daughter.
I dreamt of you last night and it was so much fun to see you, Rebecca, Liz and Danielle again (you’re all Harvard grads in my dreams!)
September 28th, 2006 at 1:08 pm
You seem to have been able to separate the perfection of the day before from what happened at the end. That is good. It means you will always have an unsullied portrait of your mother. I am so sorry you lost her so suddenly - that you were unable to prepare for it. I wish you had had more time. Perhaps you will find traces of her in the child that you carry. Maybe, one day, it will be her eyes looking out at you from a familiar face. Twice the love, honey. Twice the love.