The Year Of Dreadful Moments

There is "the moment we've all been waiting for."  And the moments we dread.  The last 22 months have been full of the moments we dread.

May 7, 2023 my mother died.  

It all started August 31, 2022.  And the filing of her 2023 taxes apparently ended it.  In between, plenty of moments to dread. The last 22 months have not been fun.  Nor totally horrible.  Like life itself, the usual combination of both.  And so much more...

September 1, 2022, about 3 AM.  I am sleeping.  My mum had been sleeping much of the previous day.  Not surprising.  An insomniac, she might only sleep one day out of every two or three.  When she slept, she might sleep six hours, or most of the day.  Not a cause for concern.

Unlike September 1, 3 AM.  My mother gets up to go to the bathroom and on the way back, opens the door to my bedroom, across the hall from  her own room.  Was she disoriented, confused?  She claimed not.  She claimed she was making her way into her room holding on to the wall, because, well, she was almost 84.  That while doing, she accidentally opened my door.  And truly, my mother did shuffle and hold on to the wall and doors, usually, making her way about the house.  But something told me she was lying to both of us.  I was uneasy.  But it was 3 AM.  I decided to address it later when she got up for the day.

Except she didn't.  Quite the opposite.  Later that afternoon, she hit the deck.  Hard.

I was out in the kitchen making lunch.  I had checked on my mother a few times because she still slept.  This was unusual enough to make me uneasy, and I couldn't wait to talk to her and get a bead on her condition, a delicate process requiring tact, tact being something I labor to cultivate in the best of times.  But sleep was so difficult for her, if she was having a peaceful rest, I didn't want to interrupt it.  Then I heard my mother moving around.  Then a loud thud.  I didn't automatically freak anymore when hearing a loud thud emanating from my mother's room.  So many times after hearing one, I'd go running to my mother's room, panicked, only to be admonished for "worrying about every little thing."  I was in the middle of making lunch.  So for once I didn't come running.  Until my my mother yelled for help.  Yep, not so smart.  Maybe part of me knew, and didn't want to know.

The next hour was a blur of worrying and EMTs.  Finally my mother was transported to the hospital.  And that began nine very grim months for both of us.

When I went to the hospital the doctors informed me.  The diagnosis was sepsis, the reason for my mother's sleeping and confusion.  And her fall.  The fall, unfortunately, had resulted in a broken tibia, which required surgery.  Assuming my mother cleared the sepsis, (not a guarantee, but it wasn't my mother's first rodeo with serious infection, as she had in her life defeated C.Diff as well as MRSA -- she was a tough old bird), she then would go to a rehab facility to regain her strength and ready herself for surgery, after which she would return to the facility to rehab, with her return home set hopefully for Thanksgiving, Christmas at the latest.

My mother's doctor, a kind and sensitive soul, hastened to reassure me that it was not my fault that I had not recognized the sepsis, as it has a tendency in the elderly to announce itself subtly, then blow up suddenly.  I think this was one of the last times I was wholeheartedly happy with any of my mother's caretakers.

While she was at the hospital, I visited my mother almost daily.  I was coming off a lengthy Covid furlough and was now looking for a job.  My mother cleared sepsis quickly, and soon had surgery to have a cage inserted around her knee to stabilize her tibia until the leg was strong enough for the tibia surgery.  At this point, my mother was sent to Facility #1.

A month to the day of her fall, I went back to work.  I was hired back at The Plaza at Coffee Paradise, again a Supervisor.  But things weren't like they were before.  The barista game had gotten faster, and very intricate.  Time had passed me by.

At first, things were good for my mother at Facility #1, as far as I knew.  She had a phone in her room and I could call and talk to her every day.  Which I did, being as how it was a little far to drive.  Would it have helped if I had?  

After she had been there a few weeks, my mother began to complain about the quality of the food.  And its temperature.  But I had no idea.  Till I saw her.

The facility sent her to an appointment with her surgeon at the hospital.  I met her there, and was shocked at my mother's appearance.  "You've lost at least 20 pounds!" I said in horror.  (Come to find out later it was 28 pounds). It was then that my mother gave me the true picture of eating at the facility.  "Dog food," my mother called it.  Always cold.  

This was followed quickly by a troubling incident.  My mother had had a port inserted; it needed to be tended regularly, lest it clog.  At one point, it needed such tending.  Unfortunately, the LPN on duty did not arrive to do so, not even when my mum repeatedly pressed the button to summon her.  For more than two hours.  Of course the port had clogged and my mother had to be transported to a local hospital to have a small procedure to replace it.  My mother (remember, she was a nurse) was very furious about her treatment and sounded off, as one would expect.  One particular nurse assured her that the young LPN would never treat her again.  "I got your back!" she assured my mum, while in the meantime the staff downplayed the negligent incident, refused to tell my mum the LPN's name, and generally treated my mum like she had a little dementia, and wasn't remembering the incident properly, but exaggerating it.  Yet three weeks to the day my mother's port clogged, the guilty LPN was indeed back to treat her.  Upon seeing her, my mum exclaimed, "I remember you!  It was you that day!" And as my mum leaned forward to attempt to read the LPN's name tag, the girl ran out of the room like the devil was chasing her.  After hearing this, I investigated how to proceed and was told the name of our county's ombudsman.  After consulting with him, he plotted a date to go to the facility and pay my mum a visit.

Unfortunately, before he could my mother got Covid.

"Just a wet cough," her nurse assured me, "Could be alot worse."

I wasn't mollified.  My mother was in chronic heart failure, and the beginnings of kidney failure.  I knew she was not the favored party in a battle with Covid.  What medicine were they giving her?

Mucinex, said the nurse.

MUCINEX!  THAT'S IT?!?!  (I'm shouting here, but I'm 94.33% sure I didn't actually shout at the nurse).  The doctor didn't order anything else, said the nurse.  

Why?  I queried.

I don't know, the nurse said.  He just didn't.

Next thing, I contacted the doctor.  Please believe me, if you believe nothing else I say here, I really was tactful, just this once.  I have gone toe to toe with my mother's doctors, many times.  They have probably regarded me, at best, as a nosy, pushy troublemaker.  But this once, I remembered the many times my mother told me, "Doctors are primadonnas, they have to be handled just so."

So I asked, and I strove to sound kindly and respectful as I did, "I was just curious why you aren't giving my mother any medicine for her Covid?  I was wondering, because she does have alot of pre-existing conditions."

"You were wondering?!"  The doctor roared.  "Are you a doctor?"

"Well, no, I'm not,"  I gasped, shocked.  "Why...?"

"No, I thought not.  You know what you are -- you're just one of those people who is prejudiced against doctors!  I'll tell you why I didn't give your mother Paxlovid!  Because Paxlovid interacts badly with her heart and cholesterol meds, that's why!  Did you know that?"

There was more, but you get the idea.

Come to find out later, meanwhile, that there was nothing stopping this jerk from giving my mum Molnupiravir or Remdesivir.  But I didn't know this at the time and after having my brain figuratively blown out, I wasn't inclined to ask.  My mum did have "only" a wet cough.  She had it for at least a month.  

And was never the same after.  

Would some Covid meds have prevented the ultimate outcome?  We'll never know.  But it would be nice to know we'd tried everything in our toolbox, Dr. Jerk.  Was my mother expendable because she was 84?  Sometimes it sure as hell seems like it.

The doctor did promise to talk to my mother to see if she was as unhappy with his care as I was.  He evidently came out of the interview chastened, because he was alot more humble the next time he talked to me.  He kept me updated well, too, after.  He never prescribed my mother anything but Mucinex, though, I guess because by now it was judged to be too late to start them.

Meanwhile, news from the ombudsman gave us nothing definitive -- the Wall Of Caduceus protected the young LPN, although dietary was slapped on the wrist over the cold, disgusting food.  For the short time my mother stayed in Facility #1 after this, her food was warm, if still pretty substandard, and she was sneeringly asked if her food was warm enough.

After my mum recovered from the actual Covid infection and seemed to them to have most of her strength back, her doctors wanted to go ahead with her surgery.  It was now November, and they were afraid that if they didn't proceed with the surgery soon, my mother's leg would never heal properly, and she would never walk again.  And my mum definitely wanted to walk again.  She was very motivated.  I was uneasy.  I didn't feel she had really gotten her strength back, between the 28 pound weight loss and the Covid.  But I was outvoted.  And they, including my mum, were the medical people.  Her surgery was scheduled for exactly a week before Thanksgiving 2022.

My mother, after being evaluated by her doctors, had moved to Facility #2.  Unfortunately, she did not have a phone in her room in this place, but it was nearer, so I went to see her frequently.  For awhile, she had her cell phone, so we could talk daily, but ultimately my mother had me bring her phone home as facility employees were constantly knocking it over, accidentally unplugging it or putting it out of her reach when moving things to do their work.  If I called the main desk and asked them to pass a message along, I could never be sure she would receive it.  I tried to be understanding that they were overworked and understaffed just like every place seemed to be.  But it was hard when my mother and I miscommunicated several times.

So, the time came for my mother's surgery a week before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, Facility #2 failed to get her transport there on time, and she missed the surgery.  Her surgeon, furious, nonetheless rescheduled her surgery for the Monday before Thanksgiving.

What followed was an unmitigated disaster.

When my mother had had the smaller surgery to insert the cage, she had a reaction to the anesthesia -- delirium for several hours. We both worried about a repeat, and asked that the surgeon use another med.  Did he?  We'll never know.

What I do know is I was notified when my mum came out of surgery.  I spoke to her when the anesthesia wore off.  We had a very pleasant conversation, and I told her I would visit her at the hospital the next day.

The next day I received a call from my mother's nurse, reporting on her condition.  She mentioned (downplayed) that my mother was experiencing "confusion" today.  I explained that I would eat and shower and come in to see my mother in a few hours.  In no way was I prepared...

When I got there, my mum was lying with her eyes closed.  I woke her, and when I did, it soon became obvious my mother was more than "confused", she was delirious.  

She spoke to me, accusing the entire hospital staff, doctors on down, of being drug dealers, of having an agenda to hook everyone in the world on drugs, so we'd all become drug dealers.  She indicated she was writing a book.  As I absorbed this incredulously, she told me to call the city police department and report the drug dealing.  Not knowing what else to say, I told her I didn't think they'd be interested.  My mother replied, "They're in on it."  I told her lamely that I didn't intend to call the cops with something I had no evidence of.  My mother's rejoinder:  "You're in on it, too," and then she turned over on her side facing away from me, apparently intending to sleep.

Stunned and numb, I sat, hoping that a lucid period would descend upon her and return to me the mother I knew.  Suddenly, I understood the morass that people who have loved ones that suffer from dementia must walk though.  As I meditated upon this, a nurse came in, explaining to my now-awake mother and me that test results had come back and my mother was deficient in potassium, and that she was here to give her a supplement.  And as the nurse attempted to give it to her, my mother fought her, yelling that they were drug dealers trying to poison her, and yelling to me to call the police.  Still the nurse persisted, trying to give her the potassium, and my mother struck out at the nurse, making contact at least once.  My mother, the former nurse, who in the 80's and 90's would come home complaining bitterly of bruises inflicted by patients, had hit a nurse.  The nurse gave up and left.

My mother turned back over to sleep, saying nothing to me.  I went home as heartsick as I've ever been.  Maybe medical personnel see delirium all the time; perhaps it's de rigueur to them.  It was one of the most frightening and saddening things I've ever seen.

Meanwhile, at my job our store had been undergoing a remodel.  During the two weeks of the remodel I had been scheduled as a matron; my job was to clean the restrooms, all the tables in the lobby, the drink stations/condiment areas, and wash all the windows.  Now the remodel was finished, and our first day back, predictably, was the busiest day of the year: the day before Thanksgiving, the day after seeing my mother's delirium.

Of course, as soon as I got to work and got the lowdown on the new layout, and all the new machines, my phone began to blow up.  It was the hospital.

"Claudia, can you come down to the hospital and help us re-orient your mother?"  "Claudia, can you help us make a decision on this, that, and the other thing?"  If I had a nickel for every interruption from them...finally I explained that I was at work the first day open after a remodel on the busiest day of our year, and dammit, I am a Supervisor in an all-hands-on a deck situation, and cannot leave my crew for anything less than an abject emergency.  And hello!  My mother and I both explained to you about her weight loss and taking it easy on the anesthesia and meds.  I find it hard to believe that you tailored her anesthesia and post-op pain meds to her post-Covid weakened condition and cold/lousy food weight loss.  And if you didn't, then you need to figure this delirium out.  Not me.

After two more days of delirium, the day after Thanksgiving I heard from her medical team, asking my permission to give my mother a mild dose of a psych drug to help get her back on track.  I gratefully assented, and the medicine worked, at least to the degree that my mother quit believing the drug dealer thing.  Getting her permanently back to her mental/psychological baseline required another five weeks, which unfortunately effectively trashed our last Christmas together.

The next day, Saturday, her medical team called me to get my okay to send her back to Facility #2, as she was back to her mental/psychological baseline.  I refused to give consent until she had three consecutive "baseline" days.  Monday, they did send her back, and l hoped life would gradually return to normal, such as normal was.

During this period, my mother was at times semi-normal; at times touchy, sensitive, belligerent, at times even verbally abusive.  She hung up on me three times in two days because I needed to talk out something I was very upset about.  The last time she hung up on me was right before Christmas, followed by a contentious text exchange Christmas Day.  I was up to here between her, her medical team, Facility #2 and my job.  I went radio silent for a few days just to get some peace and quiet.  My mother had other ideas, and disregarding how plaza employees work pretty heavily during the holiday season, began to pepper me with demands that I (or "her lawyer", which she didn't have, I believe a testament to her still not being 100% cognitively) bring her her debit card, Kindle and some pens.  Unfortunately, I was getting fire-bombed with holiday traffic and call-offs at work, and was beyond overwhelmed.  Finally, after I laid a few home truths on her via text about exactly what I had been up against at different times during our long time together, including the month since her surgery, my mother apologized, and life did return to the new normal of hospital/facility life.  And it stayed that way for about a month.

Unfortunately at the beginning of February, my mum contracted pneumonia, and though we didn't know it at the time, this was the beginning of the end.  Complicating my mother's condition, while she was actively ill with the pneumonia, Facility #2's Office Manager came to my mother's room to notify her she had just about reached the end of insurance coverage, and that if she stayed there past the end of February, they could take her pensions in order to pay her bill.  At this point, those pensions were paying the mortgage, among other things.  If Facility #2 took them, unless I could find a way to come up with an extra $725 a month, we would shortly lose our house.  After conferring legalities with the lawyer, he confirmed that not only could they take my mother's pensions, but also her life insurance policy, which existed for the purpose of paying off our house in the event of my mother's death.  None of this news helped my mother's pneumonia.  And it begs the question: After all the times these stunads called me to discuss trivia and miscellany, why when there was finally something of substance to discuss with me, did they go and dump it on my seriously ill mother, and not contact me at all?

By the end of the month, my mother had beaten her pneumonia. 

Unfortunately, there was no way to beat back time, or the insurance laws.  At the end of the month, at my mother's request (and against Facility #2's advice), I pulled her out of Facility #2 and brought her home, with the idea of getting the County's Department On Aging and her insurance company to help with some cleaning and looking after my mother when I was working.  But fate had other plans...

When I brought my mother home, I was under the impression from her and Facility #2, that she would be capable of (slowly) climbing the steps to our house.  That was, after all, part and parcel of why she was in the facility in the first place, to do exercises, bear weight, walk, climb steps.  According to my mother, she was doing all that.  Unbeknownst to me, Facility #2 had no real steps to practice on.  My mother was practicing on a platform of wooden steps four inches high.  Our steps are seven inches high.

So, when I got my mother home, she couldn't even climb one step.  I had to call the EMTs to carry her into her room.  Moreover, on the third day home, it became obvious that despite diuretic medication, my mother was retaining fluid.  Alot of it.  There was no choice but to get her back to the hospital.

For the next month, the hospital tried to get my mother's body to process its fluid.  She had been in mild heart failure for several years, and had, prior to her fall, been taking daily doses of a diuretic, checking her weight daily to make sure there was no water retention.  There had been mild kidney involvement prior to the fall, but we had managed successfully with those very simple steps and medications.  For her first 2+ months in the hospital and facilities, my mother did fine, and made great progress.  Till she lost 28 pounds.  Got Covid.  Then pneumonia.  Now four months after her bout with Covid, and seven weeks after pneumonia, my mother's body was failing.  As I found out one day late in March when her PCP, who was also head of geriatrics at the hospital, and who had looked in on my mother's case, called me.

The upshot:  Claudia, we've done everything we could.  We cannot, even with the most aggressive diuretic treatment, consistently keep fluid from accumulating in your mother's body.  In short, her heart is failing.  And her kidneys are not far behind.  We (the doctors) would like to have you come over here ASAP and talk about putting your mother into hospice.  And once we get her there, the idea is that she will probably be put into palliative care and kept comfortable until the end comes.

We decided I'd go in to meet with them on Sunday, April 2nd, my next day off.

When I went to the hospital that Sunday, I was saddened at my mother's decline.  She had lost so much ground in the little over a month she had been in the hospital, even in the mere days since I had last seen her.  So difficult to awaken when I went in her room; so drowsy even then.  The nurses had alerted the doctors to my presence.  Still, I had a small window of time to talk to my mother before they got there.  I used it to break the news that she needed to hear from me and no one else, that she was dying.  Which seemed at once to surprise her, yet not surprise her.

Soon two doctors came in and sat down with us, sketched out the situation, asked my mum's preferences for care.  It was explained to us that they, the doctors at the hospital, believed that my mother was ready for palliative care, which in our state means merely care that will keep one comfortable, but nothing aggressive to try to save her life.  Of course, the doctors at the hospice care facility that she went to would have their say, and if they felt differently, if they felt my mother could still be saved, they may try, but the hospital doctors thought that was unlikely, in view of my mother's condition, and the rapidity of her decline.  About that, they were wrong...

Now my mother was wide awake and lucid.  I kept a promise to my friend "Beth", who my mother considered to be a second daughter, to call her while I was with my mum to give them a chance to talk one last time.  We spent the next hour or so talking over our time together.  I told my mother that I thought that when it was her time to pass, that her beloved father would come to take her to the next world.

"If Grandpa comes for you, go with him, Ma," I told her.  "He would never do anything to hurt you in life, and he wouldn't now, either.  Just think, soon you'll get a new body, and all your pain will be gone."

"I'll be thin again!"  And as she said this, I saw her pallor and the oxygen cannula and wanted to cry.

At the end of approximately 75 minutes after the doctors had left, my mother was tiring badly, and everything had been said that needed to be.  (For this reason I am grateful for the period that I was furloughed from my job during Covid, and that we had gotten to have so many talks that had answered questions and healed things between the two of us, making this last day so much easier for both of us).  I told my mother how much I loved her, more than anyone in my life.  My mother surprised me by telling me she loved me the most, too.  Knowing how much she had loved and missed her father, I was indeed surprised and touched.  I got up, held my mother for the last time, gave her a last kiss and a squeeze, told her I loved her again.  And left.

I managed to hold back the tears heading through the halls of the hospital, the elevator and the walk to the car.  There I let the tears come, briefly, then drove home, where I let them come freely.

I never saw my mother again.

After I had met with my mother and her doctors, I was under the impression that it would be a few days after her decisions on her end-of-life care before my mother was taken to Facility #3.  It was not even clear when I left April 2 which facility was going to become Facility #3.  The way the doctors talked, it seemed likely that Facility #3 would wind up being further away than I was comfortable driving, painfully average and nervous driver that I am.  So I had stayed and talked to my mother until she was worn out in case they sent her too far away for me to drive.

Monday, April 3, 2023, I received calls from both the hospital and Facility #3 several miles away where my mother had already been taken.  Late in the afternoon, Facility #3 sent me a form via email outlining their care and treatment plan, requesting my consent and signature.  The plan was not the palliative care designed merely to keep my mother comfortable that she had wanted and consented to the day before.  But the hospital's doctors had warned us the new facility's doctors might see things differently than they, and that we would risk losing Medicare coverage of her stay if we didn't go along with them.  Facility #3's front desk nurse informed me my mother had consented to Facility #3's treatment plan (I believe they wore her down), so technically my consent and signature were moot (although I had only their word for my mother's consent and level of lucidity).  I did not sign the document, instead I wrote "I do not consent" in my email reply.

In the next month, my mother went to a different hospital, and from there was sent on to Facility #4.  All the way until her death little more than a month later, her care was more than palliative.  My mother was reevaluated the day before she died, and in my heart I was praying she would meet the criteria for mere palliative care.  She was not improving, and there was no real hope she would improve.  Yet she still did not qualify for palliative care, was turned down, being made to suffer needlessly, basically, I felt, so the facility could reap profits.

All of my life since I have been capable of self-reflection, I have prided myself on having strength and courage, on doing the right thing.  So many times I needed to have megadoses of all three: hanging in there through all the abuse, through recovery from the abuse, through the fight to retain our house after my mother's disability, and through 22 years of her retirement and ill health.  It was a long hard road, one that many times I had wished I could quit.  But I could never quit my mother; I loved her so much.

But now after so many years of fighting for her home and health, and taking care of both as conscientiously as possible, I ran out of gas short of the finish.  My strength and courage were completely spent; and my ability and desire to do the right thing were compromised by fatigue and overwhelm.

By the time she had been in the hospital a few weeks back in March, my mother had been deeply asleep approximately 20 hours a day; this apparently didn't change at Facility #3 or 4.  I made the decision not to go see her.  I rationalized that we had said all there was to be said.  And when a voice inside said I should not let my mother die alone, I told it we all die alone, that my presence would hold my mum here when Grandpa came to lead her away.  Away from the suffering.

I told myself lots of things.  About why I needn't go see my mum again.  Why I had to.  Bottom line, I couldn't bear to watch my mother die.  Or even watch her go downhill anymore than she already had.  In my mother's and my long history, I had been able to stomach virtually everything else.  

But not watching my mother die.

In the month since her admission to Facility #3 and now #4, I received several phone calls, none with good news. Most of these calls came when I was at work, requiring me to go outside or in the back, take the call, and then go back about the business of making lattes or scrubbing toilets like nothing had ever happened.  Maybe a stronger, better person than me could keep doing that, I don't know.  But I couldn't.

I finally told the nurses to stop with the daily Bad News Bears and call me when something had changed one way or the other.  

The first few days of May, the nurse called me to let me know on Saturday the 6th, they would be reevaluating my mother vis à vis mere palliative care.  Saturday afternoon I spoke directly to a doctor who called to tell me it was the opinion of the team that my mum did not meet the criteria for palliative care.  Off the phone, I muttered to myself about dumb doctors who don't know when people are dying.

The next evening, a nurse called while I was at work.  Of course, due to HIPAA, they, as usual, did not leave a message.  It was late in the evening, I was running behind in my work.  I decided, as the tone did not seem urgent, to wait and call them back while I was at home.  The day was very busy, as was typical at The Plaza in May; buses going down to DC and wherever else, lotsa traffic eating, drinking and messing.  Especially messing.  I was exhausted, and when I got home, I rationalized that if I called, as had frequently happened, the evening shift had probably not apprised the overnight shift on what they wanted to talk to me about.  As I was off Monday, I decided to call when I got up.  

The next morning when I woke up I noticed there had been a message from them around 2:30 AM.  Swallowing my panic, I called the facility.  It turns out they had called me Sunday night because Sunday afternoon, my mother had taken a turn for the worse, and had been transported to the nearby hospital. 

 Apparently my mother died late in the evening, and Facility #4 had called to inform me overnight shortly after they were informed.  (For awhile I was under the impression that as the facility had notified me of my mother's death early the morning of May 8th, that was when she died, but a few weeks after her death I did find she had died late on Sunday May 7th, making her obituary unfortunately incorrect).

I texted my job; my boss very kindly offered to give me a week off, which I very gratefully accepted.  I made my mother's final arrangements, and during the week off I applied for her life insurance policy.  I received it almost two months later on July 6, and the next day, put in my two week notice.  (My mother was a hoarder; her room was a mess, and I had barely managed to clean out her half of the pantry and kitchen cabinets, the medicine cabinet, bathroom closet and some drawers in the two months since she had passed.  I needed to confab with a realtor to see what I needed to fix to sell the house at maximum profit, as well as how likely and in what price range I could get a house like I wanted in the location I wanted.  I needed to get my mother's will probated, pay the house off, clean her room, and go through all her stuff.  I wanted to operate efficiently, in case the conditions were right to move to a smaller and cheaper place, something to consider due to my county's high property tax.  I felt if I tried to do all that and work, I may not get done in this lifetime).  My workplace was not too happy at the news, especially with it being the middle of the busy summer, but the truth is, I wasn't capable of being a good employee anyway.  The barista game had kind of passed me by.  The drinks were increasingly fussy and intricate, and my body and brain had slowed down; the 2 1/2 years I had been furloughed during the pandemic, and everything that had happened since my mother was first hospitalized the previous September had taken a toll.  I needed a break to take care of business at home, and to heal.

I will write the deets on the cleaning of my mother's room in a separate post, but suffice it to say I got it done in 4 1/2 months, and the difference is nothing short of remarkable, if I do say so myself.  By early December, I demonstrated Right To Survivorship of my mother's estate to the bank and paid off the house.  I returned to work, this time as a matron, in January, 2024.

They say after losing a loved one, the first year is the hardest.  I was warned about how sad and difficult birthdays and holidays would be.  And that is the gospel.  Mother's Day, a week after my mother's passing, and my birthday, a month after, were the hardest.  Christmas, my mother's favorite holiday, was kind of difficult, too.

But honestly, the random moments grief sneaks up on you when you're not expecting it were (and still are), for me, the worst.  One day last October, I drove out to Aldis to grocery shop.  On the way home, it suddenly dawned on me that for the first time I would be making my mother's favorite, meatloaf, and she wouldn't be here to eat it. I nearly had to pull over for the tears.  On the way home from another grocery trip late this May, I was stunned to see daisies on one hillside.  Instantly I was transported back to my childhood on the Verona Hilltop, and the little bouquets I had picked for my mother.  Again the tears, but at least this time I had another store to stop at, and thus a parking lot to wash my face in.

Mostly I just miss my mum every day.  Memories bubble up, of both words and actions, both good and not so, because my mum and I were/are human.  In the winter, I was having a persistent, nagging pain under my left breast. Was it muscular?  An ulcer?  One night as I slept, I dreamed about the pain, and I heard my mother's voice plain as day: "Oh for Chrissake, Claudia, it's your boob!"  A muscle relaxant did fix the pain, and I had to laugh.  That is exactly what my mother would say, and how she'd say it.

I think I'll never stop missing her.  I think of her every single day, many times.  Sometimes I think she's up there, smoothing my path in many small and large ways.  And I have many earth angels, because sooner or later, if we live long enough, we all lose our parents.  We have that in common, those of us who have lost our parents, and those who know they someday will.  You earth angels know who you are:  I humbly thank you.

The story and pics of my mother's room coming in my next post.