Deathbed Boon

 

After my mother died, I prayed for her soul for thirty days--a ritual my mother did for her mother after she died, a ritual I read about in #The Tibetan Book of the Dead many years ago, a ritual a friend recommended I do with sacred oils, prayers, and candles. On the thirtieth day of her passing, also the day of her 90^th birthday, I decoded the stoic, conscious message expressed in her unflinching three-hour stare at me before she took her last breath.

Four weeks before she died, the chaplain recommended I visit; the head nurse at the home where she lived asked I call more often; and her social worker requested my sister and me hire a nurse’s aide, who we could not afford, to prevent her constant falls (fentanyl and lidocaine patches, with morphine prescription for breakthrough pain, were causing her loss of balance); still, my mother refused the help of a walker or wheelchair to get around. Mostly, she hated wearing hospital gowns and diapers, and insisted on wearing her own clothes and taking herself to the bathroom, closing the door behind her, and doing her business in private. Now it was becoming impossible for her to get around. After seven years of being sick, her dementia and breast cancer had ravaged her physically and mentally.  Most days, she could hardly put two words together and her body was marked with bruises, bumps, and traces of dried clotted blood and pus from a metastasized cancer that made her skin look like the fiery, bumpy, and uninhabitable ground floor of the planet Mars. 

Even so, it was difficult to determine how close she was to death after coding several times over the last three months, her vital signs dropping to threatening lows only to normalize several hours later.  Her wild ride to the end was extreme: no eating for days followed by a ravenous feeding frenzy, low oxygen levels requiring mechanical oxygenation followed by a return to normal levels the following day; lack of consciousness followed by a clear, articulate expression of what she wanted and how she wanted it.  There was no indication of where she stood on the markers of dying as listed in the Little Blue Book of Hospice, a book about the physical changes to a dying person one to three months before he or she passed  Even her hospice nurse staff refused to comment on where she thought my mother stood in her process, making it difficult for me to determine whether I should fly from California, where I now lived, to New York to be with her on her deathbed.

For seven years, I had traveled every two or three weeks on trains and busses from Portland, Maine, where I lived at the time, to #New York City to visit my mother. Early on, the doctors determined that her breast tumor was cancerous and terminal, that it had broken through the skin causing a wound, that it had probably metastasized to other organs, and that it was only a matter of time before she died.  I managed such trips to New York because I worked online and because I stayed with my sister and her family who lived in the city.

 When the pandemic started things in Portland changed overnight: a slow-moving gentrification, which had started several years ago with a structural collaboration between government and private interests, took more hold of the town—construction was nonstop, rents rose, the wealthy moved in, and minorities and lower-income populations moved out. My landlady considered selling the multi-level home where I lived in the attic studio apartment, paying only $600/month for a 200 square foot space, now going for over $1200 in other comparable living arrangements on my block.  Mostly White, New England young people moved to the small city to attend the colleges in the area, and their parents, who dropped them off to say goodbye, paid their exorbitant rents.  The diverse, eclectic group of people once living on Sherman Street, including Muslims, Blacks, Hispanics, and gays, moved out of the neighborhood to avoid rising rents and management companies who threatened with their constantly changing rules, i.e., no shoes in the hall, no barbecuing, no pets…  as a neighbor had confided to me.

Also, during the pandemic the mood in Portland changed overnight: its locals became angry, sullen, and distrusting of others, as I witnessed in my walks where pedestrians crossed streets to avoid others even while wearing masks and social distancing; and at grocery stores where fights broke out when customers got too close to each other.  Incivility and paranoia exhausted me, so I decided to move to #Northern California, a place I fell in love after visiting a friend there several years back.  It was difficult to leave my mother, but the nursing home had recently closed its doors to visitors for fear of spreading the virus to more of its residents, further confirming the rightness of my plans; still, guilt overwhelmed me.  During the months I didn’t visit my mother, I saved the money I needed to fly out West to secure an apartment and eventually drive cross country to move there.

All my life, I wrestled with implications of my mother’s passing, a fear she instilled in me when I was a child, threatening to die if I did not do as she said.  She was hateful, cruel, manipulative, and spiteful, pitting me against my father and sister, using me as counselor and confessor for all her sins, fears, and confusions, and insisting I resolve problems she started with neighbors.   My relationship with her shriveled me to an inch of my humanity, scarring me with its victimization, which I still wrestled with, subconscious or not. Even when I visited her at the home, she was mean and accusatory, insisting I visit more often and insisting I find her an apartment to live in in the city, (I had always helped her financially, supporting her moves to different states, apartments, and travel, as she saw fit).  

Thanks to my lawyer sister’s legal maneuverings,  my mother had found a bed in the most exclusive Upper East Side rehabilitative and nursing home address, with 24-hour doctors, nurses, pharmacy, and diagnostics tests; all this after my sister insisted she be moved to the nursing home of her choice from the hospital where she was being treated for a mild stroke, as the law supported her right to choose housing that best suited her mother’s needs,  even with her lowly Medicare and Medicaid status.  

As I trekked across the Northeast for six-hour trips to #New York City, I resented my mother for not dying sooner, as the doctor implied she would, and I resented my sister, who lived a 30-minute subway ride away from the nursing home, for not visiting and sharing with me dutiful daughter responsibilities, but she insisted she had done her part by getting our mother into a decent home, that their relationship was too ruined to bother with pretensions, and that our mother had enough care and attention from the nursing home staff to worry about having to visit.  As shocking as my sister’s sentiments seemed, I left it at that because I feared arguing would jeopardize my staying at her place when I was in town, and because some time ago, I promised to respect any means she employed to survive our mother, as I was now doing.  To this end, we also chatted on the telephone daily about how our mother’s actions continued to hurt us; it was 24-hour job surviving her (hell was having a ruthless mother to make sure I paid for past sins and karma and learned lessons that needed learning while I was still alive).   

From the first day of her stay at the home, I wished my mother an unconscious trip to the afterlife so that I could do my duty in peace and quiet.  Even though I felt guilty about my thoughts, they couldn’t be helped.  Her feelings and needs had always superseded mine.  I even insisted that nurses and doctors spare her the truth of her terminal diagnosis, so that she could live her final chapter unawares of her illness. Now I wrestled with the burdensome and heavy implications of still being my mother’s victim, even though I thought I had long ago determined not to be anyone’s victim.

Our relationship was complex. She had made sacrifices to raise us, which she reminded me of constantly, working full-time at an elementary school cafeteria and cooking and cleaning to make sure we were fed and taken care because my retired father suffered from a heart condition that did not allow him to work. Later, when I attended college for my Masters, she cared for my children while I attended classes at the university. I felt grateful and indebted, even though I feared my current actions might be tit for tat, as she taught me all kind gestures required payback.   Did I expect an apology for her past and present hurts? No, and I wouldn’t know what to do if she offered. Our relationship was like a dirty hairball trapped so deep in my psyche I couldn’t hack it up for the sake of clarity. 

As a child, teenager, and adult her abusive demands took up my precious time under the auspices of my needing to heal or save her; I never accomplished either, even though I never stopped trying to do both. Still, she pulled me into her drama 24/7 for the sake of her pleasure.  I understood the underlying reasons for her behavior: She had had a difficult childhood with extreme poverty, nine other siblings, and an absentee father.  Even though she never spoke of the past, it fueled her ego's need to prove she was worthy to have all her needs and desires met, all the time, and at any costs--especially mine.   

As I grew older, I thought I was destined to be a martyr or saint, always taking on others' pain and grief to my detriment, when what all my good intentions really meant was that I did not have personal boundaries.  The insidious nature of abuse defined my feelings and efforts as inferior to others and left me second-guessing my needs and convictions.  It took years to understand my part in my behavior, even with its constant and detrimental toll on my emotions.  More insidious were questions of self-worth I refused to contemplate, as if committed to perpetuating ancestral patterns; in their defense, they dealt with urgent matters like poverty, disease, hunger, corrupt governments... In my defense, I was raised on my mother's toxic "milk," so all I knew and craved was toxicity, even in adulthood. I loved her.

No one should die alone, and a mother, no matter how horrible, deserved being honored for such--another reminder instilled by my mother, #Catholic beliefs, and #Caribbean culture.  Yet, I still lived in constant terror of her words and actions--especially calls from the nursing home reporting her bad behavior (running away to visit a sister in upper Manhattan, causing a fight with other residents that involved the #NYPD, and several times punching her roommates in the face)--and threatening to transfer her to a location in Bronx, which did not have the same amenities and involved a longer, expensive, and more difficult commute from my sister's place in #Brooklyn.   Still, I rode the Greyhound and F Train, and I walked up Park, Lexington, Fifth Avenue, 1st, 2^nd, or 3^rd streets to her nursing home on the #Upper East Side because my instincts told me so, because she was my mother, and because I was still her victim, further confirmed in my filing for bankruptcy as a consequence of the heavy costs incurred by my trips to New York City.  I hated her.

On the night my mother died, she stared at me with clear brown eyes for three straight hours, a monumental feat since her eyes had been clouding over with the grey mist of impending death for the last three weeks of my visit.  My decision to travel to her was based on a request from the nursing home that I sit by her bedside to prevent her from falling when she got out of bed (over the years she had fallen many times, bruising her ribs, breaking a wrist, and twisting her ankle because she refused to use a walker or sit in a wheelchair).  Administration said they would relax pandemic visiting hours and allow me to be with her as needed. Because I thought it inhumane to allow her to injure herself further even while dying, I embraced the idea of being granted my original wish of being at her deathbed, which I had given up the last year and half I was not able to visit, a wish that now seemed more daunting than ever.

For the last three weeks of her life, I stroked and combed her hair, read her Bible, played her favorite boleros on my phone, helped her color in her coloring books, fed her Ensure, and took her for walks in the wheelchair around the ward, as the nurse recommended I did.   For the last three hours of her life, she grunted I stop everything and stare straight into her eyes with the same intensity and clarity that she stared into mine.  Not easy! I wanted to scream at the nurse to stop the groaning pains and fluctuating blood pressure building up as tiny red veins in my mother's eyes, yet she stared at me unflinching. I tried doing the same, but I looked away to gather my strength, to stop my tears, and to get the nurse to administer the hourly dose of morphine.   I had prepared for this moment, by listening to Youtube videos on being present for the dying, even though I wasn’t as vulnerable as I needed to be. Even so, I tried to focus beyond my unsettled thoughts and the chaos around me.  

There was always constant commotion on the ward from other residents deemed as difficult as my mother. Her roommate, who suffered from dementia, threw her dirty diapers across the room causing a foul smell in the room.  A resident who lived down the hall, who believed she was staying at the Ritz, hurdled cusswords at maintenance workers and nurses when her coffee wasn’t hot, her sheets weren't turned, or her midnight order of a melted cheese sandwich wasn't delivered to her room. The two elderly ladies who lived next door screamed out their memories or requests 24-hours a day: One needed the bedpan, and the other was obsessed with a long-ago cheating husband who had wanted custody of their children when he left her. Sometimes, their screams intercepted the other’s: “You can have the bedpan, but you can’t have my children.”  Patricia, who also suffered from dementia, spent most of her day walking around the halls, crying, hyperventilating, or walking into other residents’ rooms who hurdled more cuss words at her.  My mother’s roommate, Shirley, who refused to pull the curtains between the beds, resented my being there and always asked me to leave.

Thankfully, my mother died at midnight when most residents were sleeping, and the ward was less chaotic. But that wouldn’t have mattered to her laser-focused intention on being present for her death and having me be present with her.  Her Swedish Hospice nurse who had worked in the field for over 30 years said she had never seen anything like my mother’s resolve to manage her dying process. I joked she thought she was a Viking trying to get into Valhalla.  “That blood runs in your veins, too,” she said.  

I didn’t feel all that powerful or graceful, even though a calming silence had taken over my mother six months before she died, a silence that should have prepared me to be present at her deathbed, a silence that heralded a vivid dream, some months ago, in which she told me she had always been wicked but had now decided to go to God.  Because she was a devout Catholic, suffering was her way to attain her goal.  From witnessing the battle scars and tumors on her skeletal figure, she had achieved her objective, further confirmed on the dark television screen outlined in the deep blue/black hills of God’s eternal void and bliss, which I dreamt as a child heaven would be.     

When she took her last breath, the lines and wrinkles on her face stretched themselves like the rays of a blazing sun. After the doctor determined her time of death, I bowed my head, cried, and stayed with her body for thirty minutes before I walked out to a New York City filled with costumed, happy Halloween crowds. The next day, I told the chaplain my mother died on Halloween night; he said she died on All Saints Day, the most sacred day of the year, when heaven opened its gates to receive new arrivals.

  Thirty days later, I was overwhelmed by an epiphany making its way to me-a thick knowing coursing into my psyche, making my body heavy with urgency.  After discarding the candle, incense, and oil used in my mother’s thirty days of prayer, I let her go in peace, even though I was now filled with a new agitation and restlessness about her passing. I recalled it was her 90^th birthday that day, but there was more to it than that.  I walked around town restless and agitated thinking about her dying message to me, once again attributing it to her mustering the courage to die or apologizing for all the wrongs she did to me, but that wasn’t it either. 

 I assumed I would never know her deathbed message, but here it was.  There was something poetic about its timing, as if such a message could only be delivered thirty days after she died--and on her birthday.  My friend, who practiced astrology and dabbled in Buddhism, said that receiving the message when I did was lifetimes in the making, when karmic debts to my mother had been paid in full and purified through my constant and exhausting mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional pursuit of grace in an impossible situation, a situation I finally surrendered whatever its outcome.  True freedom, she said, was earned by taking responsibility for one's entire story, even the darkest chapters.  I had earned some peace in my life.     

 Long ago, my mother had taken my belief in myself and subconsciously instilled a constant need to please others, to act first on their wants and needs, as if they were more important than mine, and even when they were harmful to me.  Now she needed to right her wrong in the last message she left me in her unflinching hours' long stare at me before she took her last breath:

Don’t do what you’re told. Don’t do what you read. Don’t do what others expect. Don’t worry about being good, bad, indifferent, kind, compassionate… none of it counts if doesn’t come from the heart--and most never figure out what’s in there anyway. Don’t worry about God or the Devil; I’ve dealt with both, and they’ll respect you if you do what you must. Especially, never flinch at the consequences of your heart-fueled actions, whatever they may be.