Witness of My Mother’s Passing

Darcie53

This piece is a witness to my mother’s final days with Alzheimer’s. I wrote it some time ago, but I wasn’t ready to share it until now. For privacy, I’ve changed names and identifying details, including her last name and the town where we lived. This piece includes honest descriptions of the dying process, including physical signs that aren’t often shown or talked about. Please read gently if you’ve walked a similar path.

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Ancestry.

I mean the app, not the actual family lineage.   I have a widget set on my iPad that reminds me of my upcoming ancestors dates … like my grand aunt Mildred being born on September 21, 1910, or the marriage of my second great grandfather to my second great grandmother on such and such date.   You know … the reminders of someone who was something to you, although it was generations and generations ago.  Distant.  Maybe an, “oh, that’s nice,” or “wow, he was born on a holiday," thought.  Abstract.  Hollow.  Blink and go on with your day.

What is the widget forecast on my iPad today?  It reads:  “Tomorrow:  Laura Louette Mercer died in 2024.”  

My mother.  Has it only been a year?  Sometimes it feels like yesterday.  Sometimes it feels like lifetime ago.  She’s not here, yet she lives in my memory.  And how just a few words … six or seven … can hit you unexpectedly.  Tomorrow:  Laura Louette Mercer died in 2024.

I don’t want to remember her death.  I was with my brother.  Mom had fallen and broken her hip a day or two or three before … I can’t remember … and the hospice nurses told us that she did not have long to live.  Darren flew in, and we were at her bedside.  She was not conscious.  They had given her medication so that she would not feel pain.  The first few days it was like she was in uneven sleep.  She would sleep, gasp for air, and then go unconscious again.  My brother might have different memories, but I don’t remember if Mom opened her eyes.  My brother and I tried to make plans … she would be buried in Riverton next to Dad.  My father had just passed in January of that year, so we sort of knew what we were doing.   We had to cremate Dad because it was winter.  It would be too difficult for our relatives to travel to a funeral.  We had a celebration of his life in the spring, when our loved ones could travel in better weather.  We brought Mom to Riverton for the celebration of his life.  She did not know what was going on… she had been in the memory care unit… just he was the man in the room with her that had passed.  But Mom was happy-go-lucky.  She was the life of the party.  All our relatives were happy to see her.  Her older sister Darlene traveled down with her daughter Janette to go to the celebration of life.  Yes, it was a celebration of life for Dad, but it was even more so because everyone was so happy to see my mom.  Everyone stopped to say hello to Mom, and she greeted them with the brightest of smiles.

And now my Mom was in a bed in a memory care with her children at her side. Watching someone die is not like it is in the movies.  They don’t wake up, give you a smile, tell you it will be okay, and then pass peacefully.  Death is just how life is.   Hard.  Suffering.  Gasping.  Waiting for it to end so a better life might begin.     

We did not do this with my father.  Dad died a slow death, too.  They warned us about the “death rattle.”  That gasping and wheezing and bubbly sound out of their mouth as they inhale and exhale was from the watery, mucous secretions that we could normally clear by coughing or swallowing.   You could hear that crackling, gurgling, wet sound coming out of his lips.   Darren was able to get here from Arizona in time to say goodbye to him.  We took Mom out of the room.   We did not want her to see or hear that.  She did not know him as her husband but as a man that stayed in her room.  She was not indifferent to him.  Mom had always been a caring person, regardless if she knew you or not.  She worried about her fellow residents.  It would upset her that the man in her room was suffering.

Is Alzheimer’s a blessing in that regard … to not know the man you had been married to for 58 years was about to die?

So we took Mom out of the room.  We called her sister Darlene so Mom could talk with her.  Mom had a good time talking to her sister.  She still knew Darlene.  Mom expressed that her lips were dry.  I had left my purse in the room with Dad, so I went back to get some lip balm for her.  When I got there, the nurses said Dad had passed.  I kissed his forehead, thanking God that I was able to tell him goodbye.  A day or so before I had written Dad a letter and I read it to him while he was in that death sleep.  Just as I know God is merciful, I know Dad heard me.  I was at peace.  It was a relief.  Dad was in so much pain.

I had to walk down a long hallway to tell Darren and Mom.  Darren knew immediately from my expression what had happened.  We hugged and cried and told Mom.  Mom was sad and she expressed that it was good that he was no longer suffering, but it was not the grief of a woman that had lost her life partner.  And then Darren and I planned what we were to do with his bodily form.  The funeral people had to pick him up.  We did not want Mom to see that either.  We took her out of the memory care unit.  I think we went to get a hamburger somewhere.  We stayed at my house long enough to know that Dad’s body was no longer there.  When we got back to the room, the memory care people had sandwiches waiting for us.  The room was cold.

And now Mom was lying there in same room.  Mom was in her death rattle.  That sound is long, and it is the hardest and softest sound in your life.  It is the sound of someone going that can’t just go.  You just want it to end.  We told Mom we loved her.  We told her it was okay to go.  We told her what a good Mom she was … and how Dad was waiting for her.  How Grandma was waiting for her and all of her relatives.  And we waited and listened.  Sometimes there was a little pause in the sound.  Was she gone?  No, and then it started up again.  Sometime during all that … you sit and think how many relatives and friends that have passed before you … and sometime during all that I got to thinking about the best of our friends … Brian Walker.  I thought … oh, he died sometime in September too.  I looked it up on my phone.  I still have his obituary saved.  September 26.  Eleven years to the day.

Darren, I said. Darren — Brian died today day too.  We looked at each other.  We just knew it was meant to be.   

Mom, Brian is waiting for you … his big, goofy laugh, his wide open arms.  Brian giving you that hug.  Brian giving you that warm smile.  Brian was God’s gift to anyone that knew him.

Just like my Mom.  

I love my Mom.  It still hurts to have my Mom gone.  I see her a lot on my other widgets … like those photos of the day.  I took a picture of her to share with Darren every time I went to visit her in the unit.  

And on the Ancestry app, the one reminding me that tomorrow is her death anniversary, is a picture of her that I took while she still lived in Riverton.  She’s giving me a smile, and the “A-Ok” gesture with her hand.   

Mom, is it ok?  I have to believe that in your smile. 

I still hurt a lot, and I miss you.  It is ok to be sad because that is how much I loved you.  But life goes on, and your love will always live in my memory.

I love you, Mom.  

I’m still not sure if it is ok, but it is better than it was.

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If you’ve lived any part of this, please know you’re not alone.

— Darcie D