In Memoriam

Last Tuesday, in accordance with my mother's last request, I scattered my parents' ashes.  I found a nice little cove, one not too far away from one of the beaches my family used to play at on weekends when Dad was stationed at Fort Hood.  God provided appropriate weather effects, it was a cool gray day but the rain held until after I had scattered their ashes into the water and had a long time to pull myself together.  I was satisfied with their resting place, I hope to go back some time.

James, my older brother, called to tell me that Mom was ill, perhaps terminal, with some sort of lung infection on Easter Sunday right after my Sunday School class.  My chain of command was completely understanding, I was on a plane to Houston on Monday morning.  My brother met me at the airport and filled me in, warned me to brace myself.  The next few days were a miserable dredge, waiting on test results while my mother lay, semi-conscious with a tube down her throat to force oxygen into her remaining functional lung tissue.  We passed a few days like that with mom in a state of semi-consciousness and unable to communicate in any case due to the tube.

James and I split our time between his apartment and her hospital room.  I learned that half a fifth of Glenn Livet is effective anesthetic, but the side effects aren't worth it.  After a couple days, they managed to stabilize her enough to remove the tube from her mouth.  It was the same day her tests came back positive for cancer in her kidneys, stomach and cranium.  At that point, though, the doctors believed there might be some way to treat the infection that continually filled her lungs with fluid, then begin her cancer treatments.

She was off her tube for a couple days, I don't remember how many to be honest, because the whole miserable experience runs together in my head.  Then her O2 levels crashed and she had to be intubated again.   They discovered that her lungs were filling up not from pneumonia but from a tumor in her lungs that continued suppurating.  Since the cause was not bacterial, the antibiotics they had pumped into her system were ineffective against the lung flooding, though they were keeping sepsis and several other problems at bay.  The only possible solution to her lung fluids was an invasive surgery to cap the tumor and filter its suppuration directly out of the body through a tube rather than letting it fill the lungs.  Just the catheter from the lungs couldn't drain the stuff fast enough.  Unfortunately, Mom was nowhere stable enough to survive such a surgery.

For another day or two the doctors hemmed and hawed, describing stop gaps and temporary measures to keep her alive, but none willing to broach the real issue; how were they ever going to make her better?  Was there even the slightest chance that she could have another few years or even months or weeks of enjoyable life left?  We tried to corner them, but most of them evaded answering the question.

Finally the kidney and respiratory doctors, bless them, cut straight to the point.  Mom's full biopsies were clear, the cancer in her body was widespread and metastasized.  Even an otherwise perfectly healthy woman with that much malignant cancer couldn't expect to live more than six months tops even with radical chemotherapy.  With no way to treat the ulcer filling her lungs with fluid, Mom was never even going to get that far.  Given that her usable lung tissue was shrinking daily, it was doubtful she would ever regain consciousness.  With the drugs and technology available they could keep mom's heart beating for weeks, maybe even months, but they could never get her off that damned lung ventilator.  She would spend the remainder of her days with a tube down her throat.

Our mother and father, once James and I were each respectively old enough, had both made it abundantly clear to us their wishes in a situation such as this.  I wouldn't call it an easy decision, but it was a simple one.  James and I agreed to let her go.  We ordered the doctors to stop all treatments except the lung ventilator and pain medication on Wednesday morning.  That afternoon she died.

Much to my shame, one emotion trumped my grief and sorrow.

Relief.

For the most part my relief was for her, and it was the understandable kind.  Compared to months or years of chemo, Mom's death was quiet and dignified with minimal suffering on her part.  She didn't have to endure the agony of the cancer eating her vital organs, the less-than-pleasant side effects of radiation treatment, or the dementia that would have resulted once the cancer started destroying her brain.  She died in her sleep, surrounded by her children and friends.  I think most children would be happy their parent could have that rather than a lingering miserable end.

But that's not all of it.

To say that Mom could be difficult would be akin to saying that water can be wet.  She lived her life entirely based on her own emotional state.  Hard facts, logic, clinical research- these sorts of things had no place in her life, just her gut.  And heaven forbid you get on her bad side.  My mother could teach all the Yiddish Mamas in the world a thing or two about imparting a guilt trip.  But, for all that, I loved her.

No, the guilt comes from the fact that I know she's been miserable pretty much ever since our dad died, ten years and a little over a month ago.  The last decade has been a dreary slog through life for her, while I've been busy building; my storybook marriage, my (thus far) successful career, my wonderful family.  I'm guilty because I know that while I was busy becoming one of the happiest men on the planet, my mother was enduring, devoid of her husband, and with only James and my admittedly too infrequent phone calls and visits to anchor her here.  I'm guilty because I can't help but feel happier for her gain than I am sorry for my loss.

God has finally called my mother home to be together with my father again.  She's certainly happier now than she has been at any point since March of 2002.  Even though I know what society expects of me, I can't help but feel relieved that she's gone and happy for her that her suffering, spiritual, physical and psychological, is at an end.

Which is not to say that I'm not sad, or that I don't mourn.  But if I'm honest, I'm really mourning the woman she was ten years ago.  Cantankerous, illogical, stubborn and so full of folksy-down-home-mason-jar wisdom that it made me want to wring her neck sometimes, but also fiercely loving, fanatically supportive, loyal to a fault and alive in a way most people never are.

My mother lit up a room and commanded love and respect from people just by being herself.  She was a source of constant hilarity, some of it intentional, even.  She could talk to just about anyone and have them spilling their deepest fears and hopes in an hour. She loved so completely and unquestioningly that it felt like a force of nature.

My friend Jake who, along with Joseph Turner, was very much another brother to me and James, was able to see Mom before she died, though she was intubated and unable to speak at the time.  Listening to him talk to her cut through much of my baggage with my mother, and made me feel both better and a little jealous.

Where I had spent years worrying over my mother's time-bomb medical status (life long chain-smoker, unhappy and stressed to the gills, and eating crap food and approaching her 60s, I knew we were going to have a problem eventually), or angry at her for her really awful financial decisions, or, as aforementioned, guilty because God had given me so much and all I could give my mom was the money to keep her afloat and what love I could keep untainted by all the other crap littering our relationship, Jake remembered her as she was- an amazing, loving woman who would open her home to anyone willing to show her courtesy and respect, who loved him as one of her own sons, and who, along with my father, showed him what a stable, loving marriage looks like, and how it was possible.      

I often credit my Dad with being the good example in my life, with some reason.  Gender role models are strong, and I have both consciously and unconsciously emulated my father for as long as I can remember.  But the pain of the last ten years had cast a shadow over the not inconsiderable gifts I received from Mom, both inherent and learned.

The two of them really did show me that marriage was worth it with the right person and could be a source of happiness and strength.  I feel sorry for a lot of folks who never learned that lesson.  As little as my marriage and family with Michele resemble what I grew up with, it was from Mom, as well as Dad, that I learned how to be a husband and father.

She also taught me to speak up when something appears to be complete and utter bullshit.  Granted, this trait has gotten me into trouble nearly as often as it has come to good, but I wouldn't be who I am without it, and I'm proud of her for imparting it to me.

And she gave me passion.   Not that Dad didn't feel deeply about things, he did.  He loved his duty and family and, at least by the time I can remember, wasn't afraid to express it.  But it was Mom who gave me the irrational stubborn cussedness that has seen me through the worst of it.  It was Mom who taught me to embrace those I love wholeheartedly and show the same dogged loyalty she displayed towards us.

On the phone with my friend and comrade Kellen, I described Mom's life as a tragedy sandwich.  Her childhood was marred by violence and atrocity, so much so that both her parents were dead before her fifteenth birthday and she spent many years traveling here and there by herself  or with whatever company seemed welcoming (my mother was, in fact, a carnie for awhile).  It was only after she met my father that she established some semblance of normalcy and contentment.  Not that their marriage didn't have issues, we had plenty of bumps and apparently some of the worst happened before I was even born but, by and large, those were good years for her- for all of us.  Then, right as I left the nest, she lost her anchor, and spent this last decade getting by instead of really living- a shadow of the vibrant, formidable, amazing woman who raised me.

I feel sad that she's gone, sad that I couldn't or didn't do more to make her last years better.  But more than anything, I'm happy for her and Dad and proud of both of them.  They made mistakes, huge gaping ones, but they gave me a happy, safe and loving home for eighteen years.  In this world, that's a gift not to be underestimated.