Flowers We Received

A year ago, Mom died.

On May 16th last year, we had to move her from the bed she’d slept in for over 25 years to a hospital bed in her room because we were unable to get her in and out of her real bed anymore. She was too weak. Up to that point for weeks, we had bathed her, cleaned her, dressed her and put her to bed. Cancer is a bitch, as I am sure most of you unfortunately know.

Still the 16th was a shocking day, though we knew it was coming. She no longer would eat and barely would take a few sips of water. The hospice people started giving her morphine that day and she never really came out of it to full consciousness after that. She was on oxygen. Each day I would go over to my sister’s to see her and I hope she knew I was there.

On May 20th, the nurses told my sister I should probably come. So I did. She didn’t pass that night, but we spent time with her. She never liked to be touched or hugged or comforted that way. She was raised in a rather cold Irish Catholic family and that’s just the way they all were. But she let us that last night. We stroked her hand and told her we loved her.

I went home that night when the night nurse came. I returned the next morning, May 21st. We kept the oxygen on then only so the priest could come for last rites (they call it the anointing of the sick now). When he finally arrived, we went through it with him.

After his departure, they turned off her oxygen, and it really was very quick after that. Not even an hour. I was in the room next to her when she passed. It was both easier than I thought it would be and torture at the same time.

It’s hard to believe we’ve already had a year pass. Today we are bring flowers to where her ashes are buried and then spending the rest of the day celebrating her long life as she made it very close to 95 years.

Anyway, thank you for listening.