Patty and Charlie
Becky and Rolland
Sandpiper
Solstice
Jodi and Sebastian
Chrissie and Josty
Pickles
Muffin
Jaden
Inna and Greg
Dotty, Tim, and Kiki
Rhiannon and Doug
Ravensfyre
Leila and Justin

If you are not on this list it doesn’t mean that I hate you, just consider when the last time was I called you up and invited you over, or if you even have my home phone #.

Sorry, but when you realize that you are starting to laugh at yourself for the nutty things that you say it’s time to call it quits.

My Mom has been battling cancer for the last nine years, but she has only been dying, by a doctor’s diagnosis, for the last year, and dying by her own will for the last 3 days of her life. She was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1998, after surgery to remove an encapsulated tumor and 1 year of chemotherapy (during which she lost her husband of 30 years my father) she was given a clean bill of health, which she maintained until 2003. During that brief window of good health she moved in with my sister to help care for her children and sold her home that she had worked so hard for in order to pay off debt accumulated during her illness. About a year after she lost my father she met her good friend Al, who started taking her to see the country, something that she’d never been able to afford before. She started college, where at the age of 55 she had a 4.0 gpa, and started to prepare herself for a new life without my father. Then in November of 2003 they dropped a bomb on her, her bloodwork was showing elevated levels of the hormone that marks a tumor. They did scans and discovered lung cancer, with extra bad news, it was inoperable and terminal. She had somewhere around 16 small tumors throughout both lungs, to remove them would leave her lungs like swiss cheese and useless. Her only option was more chemotherapy with no hope of a cure, only extension of her life. She was not done living so she took that option. I have to add here that after 30 years of not smoking, she started smoking again, she was so angry that she had quit smoking to avoid lung cancer and here she was with it anyway. After starting the chemo, it became evident that she wasn’t going to have much of a life while on it. She had to drop out of school as the chemo ravaged her body and made her too sick to attend. She still refused to sit down and take it, she kept the roads hot in her little Ford, coming to Columbus to see me anytime I picked up the phone and said I miss you. She and Al continued to travel whenever she had a break from the chemo. On one trip to California, her worst fear was realized, her hair fell out. She was devastated, and called me in tears. I offered to buy her a plane ticket home, but she refused. When she returned, A.J. and I went to see her, our heads shaved as bald as hers, she thought this was hilarious. She bought some wigs, she’d always wanted to be a blonde, and pushed on. Several times, she told me that she needed to stop the chemo, that she couldn’t take it anymore, but being the selfish brat that I am, I would cry and beg her not to. She’s never in my life been able to tell me no, and this was no exception. She continued on until January of last year, when she finally said no more. They told her without the chemo she’d have 6 months at the most. I think that statistic was from people not nearly as spirited as my Mother. She continued to keep going, experiencing a couple of months where she felt completely well after the chemo wore off and before the cancer started to truly ravage her body. As the pain continued to increase, she was signed up for hospice, which is required to get the pain medication needed to help. She was falling often, and after having her driver’s license revoked this past spring due to an accident she had after taking her morphine then driving to the store to get a gallon of milk, it was evident that she needed full time care. My sister, who is a licensed pharmacist, quit her job to care for the mother who had always cared for her. So Angie and her wonderful partner Karrie, bought a new home that had private living space for Mom, and they tightened their purse strings to compensate for the loss of income and life went on. It became evident that Mom realized that the end was near, when this summer she insisted that we take her to Portsmouth to plan her funeral. It was one of the strangest things I’ve ever done in my whole life. She picked out her own casket and guest book. Told them what songs she wanted played, and wrote her own obituary. We went out to lunch afterward at a favorite pizza place from my childhood. And again, life went on. She planned on coming to the ball again as she has every year that A.J. and I have been a couple. Bubba was supposed to pick her up on his way to Columbus then drop her off on his way back through. We received a call from my sister that she wasn’t doing well and she would bring her down on Saturday to spend the night then take her home on Sunday. Angie called me again on Saturday to tell me that Mom was very tired and having a lot of pain and would not be able to make it. Bubba stopped to check on her on his way back home and she thought he was there to pick her up, she had no idea the weekend had already passed. She called me, crying and apologizing for letting me down, as sick as she was, she would not have missed something important to one of her babies if she could’ve helped it. A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving she went into the hospital after a particularly bad fall. I don’t think she ever completely bounced back. I went to visit the weekend before Thanksgiving and that was when Al was there to see her. She was in good spirits, though she could no longer lift her head, and facial expression was no longer possible. I went back up the day before Thanksgiving, when I got there she went to bed, I was told she had been up all day making her world famous potato salad, but she was back up at 4am because she had promised her grandkids a cherry pie. She baked that cherry pie along with a pumpkin pie and a sweet potato pie. She then insisted on going with my sister to pick up my Uncle Larry at the nursing home that he resides at, lost in the throes of dementia, my mother the last person that he recognized. She spent the day attending to his needs, and making sure that all of the kids got enough to eat, then insisted that she go with them to make sure that he was returned safely. She went to sleep as soon as she returned home, and was still asleep when I left to go home the next afternoon. I got a call from my sister that Sunday asking that I come sit with my Mom that Monday and Tuesday, as they were being audited at her partner’s office and she needed to go into work. When I got there Monday afternoon, Mom was very quiet, I asked her if she was still recovering from Thanksgiving, she replied I guess so. When Angie and Karrie got home from work, they brought the mail in with them, which happened to contain Mom’s disability check. She became fixated on getting that check in the bank, and since the banks were already closed I promised her that I would take her as soon as they opened the next morning. The need to get that check deposited so stressed her that she stayed up all night , and at 9am when it was time for the bank to open, I took her to the car. I realized that something was wrong when she first couldn’t remember where I was taking her, then didn’t know what check I was talking about. I went back into the house and retrieved the check, when I came back out she asked me again where I was taking her. I reminded her again, and she remembered the name of her bank but couldn’t remember where it was at. So, I pretended nothing was wrong and went to Angie’s office to ask where Mom’s bank was, they were concerned about her confusion but couldn’t leave in the middle of an audit. After getting the directions I headed back to the car to find Mom trying to get out of the car thinking she was at home and just wanting to go to bed. I explained again where we were and where we were going and she seemed to recall. I went to her bank, cursing when I realized that it was in a shopping mall with no drive thru. I lit a cigarette for her, took her check and her driver’s license, and went into the bank praying to any god that would listen to please let her stay in the car. While in the bank I was peering out the front window every five seconds checking on her, I’m sure they thought that I was up to no good. I got the banking done and rushed back out to the car where I found her sound asleep with the still burning cigarette laying on her lap. Luckily it only caused minor damage to her coat and no damage to her. I got her home, where even with her walker she just couldn’t get her feet to lift up enough to walk into the house. So, I walked behind her, lifting each foot in turn until we made it to the house. She could make it no further than her recliner in the living room, where she sat down and went to sleep. I made her some lunch around 1pm, she could not seem to get the food on the fork, so I fed her a few bites, and that’s all that she could stay awake for. She was still asleep when I left that evening. My sister told me that she slept until 1am in that chair, then my sister was up with her the rest of the night as she was no longer able to control her bladder and needed constant changing. Her hospice aide came in on Wednesday, Mom claimed not to be in any pain, and was still responsive, but she noticed just how much downhill Mom had went and called her nurse for an evaluation. The nurse came on Thursday, Mom’s oxygen level had dropped to 89 and she was still unable to control her bladder, so they inserted a catheter, and put her on oxygen. By this point she was only waking for 10-15 minutes at a time. The nurse told Angie to call her family Mom had no more than a couple of days left. I woke up on Thursday morning, my right eye swollen completely shut, Andrew had poked me in the eye the night before, and I’d thought no more about it, until I woke up that morning with a throbbing pain behind that eye and no ability to open it. I called my doctor who was unable to get me in, so I called a friend to drive me to urgent care, I had no more hung up the phone than I got the call from Angie. I could not see well enough to drive, so we decided that A.J. would drop me off and take the kids back home, and if my eye got any worse someone at my sister’s could take me to the e.r. When we got there my brother and his wife were already there. I went straight downstairs to see my Mom, my sister leaned in really close to Mom and hollered for her to let her know I was there. She opened her eyes and looked at me, I said I love you Mom, and she mumbled I love you too. Angie asked her if she knew who I was, and she said yes. They held Andrew down to her and she managed a smile and tried to lift her arm to touch his face but she was just to weak. After A.J. left with the kids, I sent my sister to bed, as she hadn’t slept in a couple of days, and Bubba and I stayed up with Mom. She was still easily agitated at this point, and would often try to get out of bed on her own. When she would do this, Bubba and I would ask her where she wanted to go, and do our best to get her there. She usually just wanted to move over to her chair, which was no problem, she wanted to watch QVC a little and drink some water. Angie, despite my protests, only slept a couple of hours, and was back downstairs, where she and Karrie fell asleep on the pullout sofa. Around 6am Mom fell into a deep sleep in her recliner and I lay down in her bed and slept for about an hour, holding her hand in case she should wake and try to stand up. During the day Friday, while she slept, I busied myself making a big pot of soup to feed the large amount of people who had begun to gather to say their goodbyes to Mom, and for a short while felt useful. There was a small amount of panic when we realized that we were running short on her liquid morphine, and she was no longer able to swallow pills. After many heated phone calls to Hospice and Mom’s doctor, Karrie and Tresser got it taken care of. I never realized that there are very few pharmacies that carry morphine, but they managed to find one nearby and the doctor phoned in the prescription. Mom’s waking periods on Friday were less and less 30 sec. to 1min. at a time. A few times she woke feeling the urge to go to the bathroom, even though we explained that she had a catheter she insisted on going to the toilet, so Angie and I would sit her on the bedside commode, where she would sit for a few seconds, then stand up to go back to bed. Al came to visit, and sat for a long time by her bed, talking to her no differently than he did when she was able to reply. She acknowledged that she knew who he was. He left to go check into a hotel nearby and came back that evening to have dinner with us, and sit with Mom a little longer. He was very comforting, as he had already been through this with his wife, and gave us a little insight into what to expect. Her hospice aide came in and suggested that she may be constipated from the morphine and we should think about giving her an enema. Tresser, who was not raised by my Mom, but my Mom listed her as a daughter in her obituary just the same, didn’t hesitate, she drove directly to the pharmacy to purchase one. As no one else had the stomach for it, and being the mother of a 1yr old and a 3yr old nothing grosses me out, Tresser and I closed the door and gave her an enema. She was not pleased with the process, but showed that she was still able to hear and respond by cooperating with everything that we told her to do. When the enema started to take effect she at first tried to get up, but we reassured her that there were pads underneath her and she needn’t worry. It became evident after a while that the enema wasn’t working, and now I’m getting to the reason that I felt the need to include the story of the enema, Tresser, who had no obligation other than her love for my Mother put on a glove and dug out the impaction that was causing my Mom so much pain and aggravation. Tresser, if you ever read this, I know that we’ve had our differences in the past, but I love you so much for that moment. You were as tender and careful with my Mother as someone caring for their first child. You could tell by her actions at that time that Mom understood what was going on, and if she could’ve spoken I’m sure she would have said thank you. As we were finishing cleaning Mom up her brother Dan and his wife Mary arrived, bringing an envelope full of pictures of my Mom as a child. They stayed for a long while, my Uncle Dan was very affected by my Mom’s condition, I got a glimpse of what it must feel like to lose a sibling. After they left, my sister and I went about giving Mom a bath. Though she could no longer open her eyes she smiled the biggest smile while I was washing her hair. How good that must have felt, my Mom always loved her showers and couldn’t stand for her hair to be dirty. She slept peacefully that night snoring her little snore that we used to make fun of as children, but at this point it was the most beautiful sound in the world. The next day my Father’s family arrived to see her. These are the people who disowned me when I married A.J., I made myself scarce, running errands and hiding out in the kid’s room until they left. My sister was starting to be concerned over my not sleeping and convinced me to take a sleeping pill, I slept for about 10 hours and was very upset that I had missed that time with Mom. Her breathing had started to become very labored on Sunday, and sometime Sunday afternoon she slipped into a deep coma. Her right eye would not go completely closed and she had a thick white discharge coming from her mouth. Around midnight we noticed that her hands and feet had begun to turn purple and become mottled. We had been told that when this begun to happen it was just a matter of minutes or hours. Her breathing became such that her whole body seemed to jump with each breath, and I just kept wondering how long could she labor this hard. I no longer believe that people hang on because the spirit isn’t willing to let go of the body, I believe that sometimes the body is not willing to let go of the spirit, and believe with all of my heart this is what was going on with my Mom for all of Sunday night. Early Monday morning, Angie went upstairs to help get her children ready for school, Bubba and I were sitting on either side of Mom holding her hands, when she gave two very short little breaths and stopped breathing for a minute, I yelled at Bubba’s wife to go get Angie, but Angie must’ve sensed something as she came running down the stairs right at that moment. Just as she got into the room, Mom heaved a huge sigh seeming of relief, her arms tensed for a moment, then her whole body relaxed. Years of stress and pain melted from her face, taking away every wrinkle and she smiled. I think she saw my Dad. I believe in my heart that she saved that last breath for Angie, her daughter, closest friend and caregiver til the last moment of her life.

I want to give a little advice to people when speaking to someone dealing with a loved one who has died after a long illness. This is not directed at anyone in particular. NEVER, say or assume that the person is, or should be relieved by the death. They are NOT, and do not have to be. We are selfish creatures, and though we realize that the person was in pain, we would still rather they be with us than dead.

This gentle, wonderful, man doesn’t have to spend any time with my Mother. God knows no one would blame him if he walked away. He’s already been through this once about 8 years ago with his wife of 30+ years, as a matter of fact that’s how he and my Mom met. She lost my Dad at the same time, and they were chatting in a Christian chat room online (yes my mom’s a cyberslut lol). He does what he does because his faith in God and his interpretation of his saviour’s message are so imbedded in him that he has no choice but to do what is right. He has no choice but to continue to love my Mother, and know that he will see her strong and vibrant once again when they meet in heaven. My Mother tells me they plan to meet in heaven with my Dad and his wife and play cards.

This story is for all of the Christian bashers lately, these two people are the norm of Christianity, not Fred Phelps, and all the radical Fundies that you like to point at. And, I’m glad that I’ve been reminded of that. I miss that sense of community, of being responsible for you’re neighbor, of loving and helping one another, and sharing one common goal. No, I still can’t swallow a lot of the teachings of the Bible, but I can’t swallow a lot of the fantasy role playing bullshit of paganism either, so maybe I’ll take my Mom to church this Sunday, sometimes it takes a long time to discover which the lesser of two evils is.