Please pray for the repose of the soul of my mother, who died peacefully on March 1 at the age of 89. She passed into eternal life with four of her five children gathered around her hospital bed, just minutes after she heard our absent brother's voice on speaker phone.
After many illnesses over the past year that landed her in and out of the ER (including a stroke in December or January, which went largely unnoticed because it didn't incapacitate her; followed my a number of mini-strokes or seizures afterward, also misdiagnosed because they were so mild), she was hospitalized in mid-February. After tests, and about a week in the hospital, it was determined that it was time for palliative care because there was no more that they could do for her. Within days of her hospitalization, she could no longer eat more than a few bites of soft food or drink more than a few sips from a straw, and even then, she had to be reminded to swallow. And then she could no longer even do that. She was as weak as a kitten in many ways; her digestive system began to shut down. She couldn't move, speak, or open her eyes. But the one kidney she still had was functioning and her heart was still beating strong.
It doesn't surprise me at all that her heart was still strong. My mother was all heart, and a fighter, a woman of fierce determination and legendary energy. It was so hard to see her brought to such a weakened state. But let me start from the beginning.
My husband and I had been in the Nashville area for two weeks, meeting the newest of our 23 grandchildren (born on January 30). We had just returned home on February 17. We knew that my mom had gone to the hospital and had been there a few days, but we were planning to rest up for about a week at home in VA before we headed north to see her. Even though she was pushing 90, we had every confidence that she would pull through and go back to her new mini-apartment at an assisted living home, where she'd moved in December (after living with my youngest sister and her husband for seven years, until she required a higher level of care and could no longer be left alone in the house for even a short time). Mom always pulled through; we'd already been through two stretches where it looked like we would lose her: once in 2008; and again in 2016, right around the time my dad died. But she bounced back both times, living up to her "Energizer Bunny" nickname. We liked to joke that she had nine lives, and truly, she had regained her health and vitality at times when no one thought she ever could. In 2008, she got down to about 89 pounds and had to have a feeding tube. In 2017, she needed almost round-the-clock aides at my sister's house, because she couldn't even get out of bed on her own anymore. But just last summer, in July 2024, she looked like this:
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| My baby sister (Mom's caretaker for 7 years), Mom, and me. |
So we thought this most recent setback might be the same sort of thing. I fully expected that by the time we got up there, she would be settled back at the assisted living home and that's where we would be visiting her.
But this time was different. The news from up north was grim. Make sure you get a priest in to see her, I told my baby sister. And my husband and I decided to cut our time at home short and get up there to see my mother as soon as we could. We left early on Wednesday, February 19, and while we were on the road, my sister texted me a video she'd taken of Mom receiving Last Rites and Holy Communion that morning. In this video, her face was infused with the innocence of a small child, and she mouthed all the prayers along with the priest. That was the one thing I wanted to see happen--for my mom to receive those sacraments before she died--and watching the video made me cry happy tears. It was so beautiful.
My husband and I arrived at the hospital Wednesday afternoon, after a 10-hour trip from VA. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, we spent long days with Mom. She was still eating and drinking (although not more than about 300 calories a day) and still lucid, still talking happily to my children and grandchildren on FaceTime (albeit softly and with great difficulty). On Wednesday night, she lit up when our toddler grandchild (son #3's youngest) kept saying, "Hi, Mimi!" and, "Miss you, Mimi!" And when he asked, "Okay, Mimi?" she answered, "I'm getting to be okay." I believe she thought she was going to win this latest health battle, like she always did. And her sense of humor was intact. In her airy, diminished voice, she told son #2 about how she'd been flirting with a male nurse, calling him cute. When he told her he was happy to see that she hadn't changed, she joked, "I'll never stop flirting." She was completely herself, in spite of all the injuries to her brain. Still engaged, still knowing the names of each and every great-grandchild, still very much loving life.
During our long visit on Friday, February 21, my husband blessed my mom with holy water from Lourdes, which my older brother had brought for her. And he put a brown scapular (an old one of mine) around her neck.
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| Friday night...my beautiful mother, teaching us all a lesson about humility and detachment. I will never forget that last week-and-a half-with her. |
Mom's room that night was filled with her children, with visiting and laughing, with my older brother and I spoon-feeding our mother like she did for us as babies.
Every doctor and nurse told us the same thing: Mom could have days, or weeks, or perhaps even more time. These sorts situations were hard to predict. My husband and I thought we might have to prepare for a longer stay up north, so we left to go back to our home in VA on Saturday morning, planning to stay a week or so and then head back up to NY to be there however long was necessary. But while we were on the trip south, we got word that my mother had declined radically and was no longer responsive. My younger brother (the family rock star, who I half-jokingly refer to as her favorite) had come that day with his whole family and played his guitar and sang for her, and even that didn't evoke the smallest response. She wasn’t opening her eyes anymore and looked like she was in a deep sleep. If my mom couldn't rally even for her grandkids and great-grandkids, things were getting very serious. When we got that news, we decided to turn right around on Sunday, February 23 to head back north, because it looked like she could have very little time left.
As it turned out, we had only a week. While we were in VA on Saturday, I got the first class relic of St. Therese of Lisieux that had belonged to my mother's mother and had come to me a number of years ago, so we were able to pin that on Mom's hospital gown when we got back. I also got my Rosary-making supplies, and on the trip north in the car I made a mother's Rosary for her, with each of her five children's names spelled out in letter beads on it, one name in the middle of each decade.
My siblings (along with my husband and one of my sisters-in-law) and I all rallied and made sure that our mother was rarely alone--even often having at least one sibling staying overnight with her. We spent many hours in that third floor room letting her know how much we loved her. Also praying Rosaries and Divine Mercy Chaplets and the Catholic prayers for the dying, telling her how happy we were that she was our mom, but also that if she needed to go, we would be okay. (And reminiscing and laughing and getting a lot of comfort out of being together at this difficult time, gathered around our mom and having a sort of family party—something she loved so much.) Even though she couldn't respond, we have every hope that she heard everything we were saying. Eventually my two bothers and one sister-in-law had to head home (one brother lives five hours away from the hospital, the other two hours), but my two sisters, my husband, and I were still around, spending as much time as we could at Mom’s bedside.
I don't think I could ever adequately describe how extraordinary the care my mother--and even all of her visiting family members--received was during those grueling last two weeks of her life. It was worth it to have her at that exceptional teaching hospital in VT rather than the one closer to her home, even though it meant many ferry rides back and forth across the lake to visit with her. The nursing staff brought a cart of coffees, fruit, and all kinds of snacks to the room. One of the nurses who so lovingly cared for Mom during her last days remarked to my baby sister, "Y'all are making me want to have children. It has been a pleasure serving your mother and your family." We were told by other nurses that the constant gathering of family in our mother's room was not typical, and that many of their patients die alone. Also that grown children of elderly patients often argue about their care, which we didn't do--thank God! We were all on the same page: we just wanted to be with her and we wanted her to be comfortable. Her pain was managed so well by the staff at this wonderful hospital that every time a doctor or nurse came in to check on her, they assured us that she looked comfortable. We would know, they said, if she felt pain; but there was never even the slight furrowing of a brow or the hint of a grimace. Mom did look at peace, and for that we were very grateful.
Mom got Last Rites a second time--I forget which day it was, because I wasn't there yet when it happened.
On Friday, March 28, my youngest sister, my husband and I were at the hospital with Mom in the early afternoon. (My other sister had been there through the night and had gone home to shower and get some sleep.) We were getting conflicting opinions: it could be hours. It could be days. It could be weeks. We decided to go home and sleep and come back in the morning. Her breathing seemed a tad more labored, but none of the staff who'd seen her that day had spoken of any new concerns. But when she heard we were all going home, the nurse who'd been on duty with Mom that day said to my sister, "I think you should stay. And you should call your other sister." Suddenly, we had a feeling that it wouldn't be much longer. So my other sister was called to come back, as well as the brother who lives two hours away (my older brother and his wife had had to travel out to Ohio to babysit for grandchildren and would not be able to come). Once the four of us were all there, we decided that we would stay overnight with Mom. I almost went home across the lake with my husband, because I worried the room would be too crowded, but he encouraged me to stay with my siblings and I will always be so thankful that he did that. The nurses had already removed the second bed in the room to make space for Mom's many visitors; now they set up four recliner chairs for us and we had the most significant sleepover of our lives.
On the morning of Saturday, March 1, it became noticeable that my mother's breathing was much more labored.
About three hours before my mom died, a lovely young nurse of Irish descent, who had the voice of an angel, sang Danny Boy to her while she turned her and administered her meds. And then about an hour before she died, another nurse who'd taken care of her earlier in her stay stopped in to see her. And In the softest of voices, while tenderly stroking my mother's cheek, this nurse leaned down and quietly encouraged Mom with these amazing words (which I've transcribed from a video my sister took, because I simply can't share something so private here in this space):
"You and God, you've got some business. You're working it all out, and you're taking care of that business. And until that business is dealt with, I think you're going to stay right where you are. That's what I think. But try to rest. Relax. Your whole family is here, everybody that loves you is here. And the person that loves you more than anyone is God, and He's wrapping His Holy Spirit around you, and He's going to wrap His Holy Spirit around all of your children. They're going to be perfectly fine. They're going to miss you, because they love you so much. But they're going to be okay. Because they know exactly where you're going. You're going to go to Heaven, you're going to be with Jesus. Just try to relax. Think about all of that love--the love of your family, the love of the Lord, the love of Mother Mary and all the saints. All right? And we're all going to see you again. Okay?"
Then this nurse told Mom that she was going to pray for her in church the next day. Let me be clear: this is a secular hospital, not a Catholic one. But Catholic nurses kept finding their way to my mother's bedside.
When Mom's breathing really started to change, we thought of what several of the nurses had told us during those final days: that some dying patients seem to be waiting for everyone to leave, while others are waiting for someone to arrive. Four of my mother's children were gathered around her bed that Saturday morning. The only one who wasn't there was her oldest son, who was out in Ohio. So we got our brother on my sister's phone and put him on speaker, and he said his good-byes through tears. Then about fifteen minutes later, with a tear rolling down one cheek, she died.
My mother had not been able to open her eyes for a whole week. But right as she took her last breath, she opened them.
I believe that my mother was seeing those people whom that nurse was talking to her about just an hour earlier: Jesus, and Mother Mary, and all the saints.
As if this post doesn't already describe a passing from this earthly life that is so very beautiful, so filled with the love of God...I need to tell you about one other thing that happened, which we all believe was divine intervention. I said above that on Saturday, February 22, my mother's condition changed drastically and she was no longer responsive, and it was determined that they could do no more for her than keep her comfortable. At that point, we were faced with keeping her in the hospital on palliative care or taking her home to care for her in hospice. The four oldest of us immediately thought that the transfer to the ambulance and the long ambulance ride across the lake to NY, etc. might kill her in her diminished state. We also loved the kindness and efficiency of the hospital staff, who were always so gentle and patient with our mother, always said her name and spoke to her when they were taking care of her. And we worried that we would not be able to keep her as pain-free as she'd been up to that point if we had to take her off the IV morphine (IV's are not allowed in hospice care, we were told). My youngest sister, however, felt strongly that Mom should go back home to her house, where she'd lived before going to the assisted living home in December and where she still had a hospital bed in her old room. The rest of us decided that even though we'd thought that our mother should stay where she was, our baby sister had been her main caretaker and health care advocate for so many years, and she deserved the make the final decision about where Mom would die. We all agreed to have Mom go "home" and take care of her ourselves.
On February 24, the very morning when my youngest sister would be signing the papers to schedule the ambulance and the transfer and my mother's discharge from the hospital, her daughter sent her a text. My niece was pregnant with her second child, nine years after the first, and she was scheduled for a C-section on March 4 unless the baby decided to come sooner. She texted my sister to say that she was having contractions two minutes apart, but not to panic. She said that she would text again later with updates after seeing the doctor. But when the hospitalist arrived with the transfer paperwork shortly after the text, my sister said, "Hold on. There's been a development." My sister and her husband were the ones who were planning to drive down to MD to help out when the baby came; now, it looked like it might happen early, even that very day. Maybe it was better if Mom stayed in the hospital, my sister thought, so she could be ready at any moment to make that trip south to meet her new granddaughter and know that Mom was in good hands.
The funny thing is, once the decision was made to keep Mom in VT at the hospital and all five of us siblings were in perfect agreement about her care, our niece never had another early contraction. Not one. Each day my sister would check in on her: no news. Nothing happening. Mom died on March 1, and my sister was in MD on March 3 as planned all along, so that she was in place to watch her older granddaughter while her daughter was in the hospital giving birth to her new granddaughter by C-section on March 4. Amazing, isn't it? Do you think God might have had a hand in how it all turned out? I certainly do.
And talk about the circle of life! My mom loved the role of "Mimi" to her 17 grandchildren, and she was so incredibly proud of being a great-grandmother to so, so many! Shortly before her death, great-grandchild #35 (our youngest son's second daughter) came along; and shortly after her death great-grandchild #36 (my sister's second granddaughter, whose timing was practically miraculous) joined the family. God is so good! All the time! And I know that Mimi is smiling down on all these young ones in the next generation, many of whom were fortunate enough to know her.
I will always miss my mother. In life, she was one of those "larger than life," "life of the party" people. Dressed to the nines for every occasion in bright colors, with earrings and necklaces to match each outfit, Mom always looked like a million bucks. She was a friend to everyone she met and was loved and admired by many. As she grew closer to death, I feel like she became a small child again. Helpless and weak, with no possessions anymore (except the hospital gown on her back and the wedding rings we had to remove from her fingers), it was obvious that she'd left the world behind and all she cared about was the love of her family and of God. It was tough to be there as she lay dying. But it was a privilege as well, and the lessons I learned from that experience--about detachment, and acceptance, and childlike innocence, and trust in God--will be with me until the day I die.
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| Twinning in 2021, when Mom was 85 years young. |
