Grief Has A Thousand Names

none of which I can speak yet 

In February it was 30 years since I lost my mother. That time was especially difficult for me and still to this day I struggle telling the story of her death and how her life affected me. For so long I thought it was just her death that hit me hard, but no, it wasn’t just her death and the part I played. 

So much more was happening at the time. 

Sitting in the darkened room holding my mothers hand while she slept. There was nothing I could do to make her more comfortable. I was there and that’s all I could offer. Her pain was more than the morphine could handle anymore. She’d been here in this bed for 6 months and I was tired. 

I am grateful that I was ignorant of the way death comes. Somehow I thought when she couldn’t handle it anymore, she’d die. I had no idea it was just the beginning. She’d been eating organic for years and her organs were healthy, it was just her bones that were disintegrating and causing her beg to die in agony.

I sat holding her hand, her best friend Barbara sitting across from me holding her other hand. We watched her breath. In and out, then we’d wait. Was that the last one? No, there it is, another breath. Each one reduced to her last breath. We sat there through the night, napping when we didn’t want to, so afraid I’d miss her last breath. I couldn’t, wouldn’t leave her and I was so grateful that Barbara was there with me. 

In the morning, Carl, my mother’s first born, came to the house. He’d called his friend who’s father owned a glass company in town. A stretcher wouldn’t fit through the hallway so we had to remove the window to get her out. We’d decided it was time to give up and take her to the hospital.  She’d spent years fighting the AMA and choosing alternative care instead.  We realized we couldn’t control her pain anymore.  We called the ambulance once the window was removed, they brought in the stretcher and I rode with her to the hospital, leaving her home for the last time. 

She didn’t die then just because she couldn’t go on living that way, she lived in the hospital for another 15 months. It is still too much for me to face, it’s been 30 years in February, but it was so much more than just my mother dying, my whole life was changing and I was in a rushing tide with no control or choosing of my own. I held on tight and tried to save myself. There are no words. Still. 

Three Months

Stepping off the elevator, I turned left towards the Recuperative Care Unit of Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.    

Standing in front of a big picture window stood a young woman about my age.  Jeans, tee shirt and a zippered sweatshirt, long brown hair falling in her face, I could see she was crying.  Since that’s about all I did anymore, I thought I’d stop and see what was up.

I felt pulled to this young woman as I often do to strangers.  I walked up and just stood next to her.  “Why are you here?” I asked. I’ve always been willing to speak to a stranger and my style is to talk to them like I know them personally.  I figure we’re pretty much all the same when it comes to this sort of situation.  

  Her answer was unsettling to me.  She wiped her tears with the back of her hand, looked at me and said, “My mother has been here for 3 months and today I am taking her home to die.  To my home.”  

“Is she in pain?”  I asked.

“No, but she’s dying.  

After a moment for this to sink in I said softly, maybe to her, “Oh, no.  Three months?  How did you do it? I couldn’t do three months! No, I can’t do three more months.”  

She looked at me with tearful eyes and told me that she’d been here every day with her mother who was fighting lung cancer and had been getting treatments but now wanted to go home to die.

She looked at me with pity in her eyes.  She, too, had thought, “No, I couldn’t do that.”  

But life has a way of showing you just what you are capable of  and it’s always more than you thought you were able to handle.  

I heard her pain and immediately empathized.  Three months seemed like more than I could ever consider.  Three months of coming to the hospital?  I sympathized with her and told her she’d already done more than I could imagine.  We stood together and thought of our Mother’s, ourselves.  We didn’t talk for long but I’ll assume she probably had a husband and kids like I did.  We were both too young and so over our heads with grief.  

It was early December 1984, I was 28 years old.  Life had gotten very complex for me in the past year.  I was barely hanging on to my own sanity, my full time job and my newly formed blended family.

My Mother had been bedridden for the last six months at home trying to fight her bone cancer through an alternative therapy.  She’d been eating organic for eight years already and following the strict dietary requirements of the Gerson Therapy.  

For those six months that my Mom was stuck in a bed at home, I’d drive the 20 minutes it took to get to my parents house, during my one hour lunch break. I’d run in the back door, make the healing drink of liver from a calf no older than 3 days mixed with chopped carrots and apples and centrifugally spun into a juice.  While she drank her juice I’d give her a coffee enema to relieve her pain and I’d sit with her. I was her sunshine but I could only stay less than a half hour.  I raced to get back to work on time fighting through my tears.

While she was trying to self heal she drank so much carrot juice that her skin turned orange.  She consumed two 25 pound bags of organic carrots every week.  

This was in the mid 80’s and it was lucky for us that we lived near Santa Cruz because the  organic movement was just becoming important and it was available up in the mountains. She’d been fighting her cancer for about 6 years already.  She’d done the surgery, the chemo and the radiation.  Then she decided to follow the Gerson Therapy, illegal in the states, an alternative nutritional therapy and had gone twice to the clinic.  I went with her once and learned much about life and death at that renovated Mexican motel in Rosarita Beach. She’d forged a gallant fight for so many years. 

This young woman and her mother left that day.  All I could think about all day long was ‘3 months?’  I can’t do 3 months.  Oh, no, I can’t do 3 more months of this.  I’m already tired, already done.  We kept looking at my mom  being admitted to the hospital as some kind of relief. I don’t know what I expected.  I didn’t have the luxury of time to consider what might be coming at me because what was in my lap was so much more than I could cope with already.

I was at the hospital to visit my mother who had cancer that had metastasized from her breast to her bones.  She was bright, vibrant and had been in charge at work and at home and was only 56 years old. 

I remember her crying to me after her doctor had first put her on bed rest after breaking her leg at my house on Mothers’ Day seven months earlier. She was worried she’d go crazy in bed for two weeks but she refused to go to the hospital.  Little did she know that those two weeks would turn into 6 months.  The morphine she took for the excruciating pain was provided by a holistic doctor and administered by a holistic nurse who was also a neighbor living  up in the Santa Cruz mountains but at some point it wasn’t enough.

On December 1st we just couldn’t manage her pain anymore and decided it was time to admit her.  That night our family friend Barbara and I had spent the night sitting in small wooden chairs on either side of her bed watching and waiting for each individual breath willing her to live.  

The next morning we called the local glass company to come out and remove the picture window of the room my mom had hibernated in for the last six months trying to heal herself.  She could no longer move and would have to be carried out on a stretcher and the stretcher wouldn’t make the necessary turns to go down the hallway.  A lack of foresight on my Mom’s part I’d say, and she’d agree with me.   Neither she nor anyone else ever thought it would be 6 months that she’d spend in that room and even though at some point we knew it was not working we never thought that she’d have to be carried out.  

Once the window was removed we called the ambulance and they came to take her to the hospital, I rode with her  leaving her home for the last time.   My father and older brother followed, my husand and son following them.  

My father sat by her side morning till nightfall day in and day out. He’d sit and read the paper and they’d watch tv together.   She was on a permanent morphine drip and was alert and sociable. She had many visitors and often it seemed she held court.  I came 6 days a week.  

It was different having her in the hospital but not really a relief.  My days were now longer and I was just as tired but I was no longer responsible for her daily juice, the race to visit and assist during my lunch hour.  

Mornings were still full of activity, laundry, bed making , breakfast, kids, shower, hair, makeup, finding a clean and ironed outfit.  Before leaving the house, a quick run through picking up stray items, I pour myself a cup of coffee and as I drove past the hospital on my way to work, I give my mom a quick nod, ‘see you later, Mom’.

I was her sunshine and she needed to live vicariously through me so I had to make sure to have a story or two for her entertainment each evening after work.

For the next 15 months I worked full time, and 5 nights a week I would stop by the hospital and visit with my mom and dad. Saturdays were spent in her big double sunny room with the entire family watching sports and visiting, kids playing on the floor.

In one way life was better for me now. I could work without her calling me screaming to help her die.  I could go to lunch with friends without guilt.

In another way my day was so much longer now.  After work I’d jump in the car and fight the traffic to Santa Cruz.  Sitting in the parking lot at the hospital, I’d take a moment for myself.  A moment when I wasn’t responsible to nor for someone else.  When I’d muster up the strength to face my parents another day not knowing what I’d find as I walked into her room after work in the early evening, bringing her my world of sunshine.  

Some days I’d have Jasmine, our nanny, bring the kids to me at the hospital after she fed them but other nights I’d stay for only an hour or so and rush home to be mom and to do homework and baths and bed.  

This was a time in my life that I often thought I couldn’t go on but somehow I did.  My mom spending six months at home in bed and 15 months in the hospital  caus me to carry the burdens of the stress those hours, days, weeks, months and years heaped upon me.

When you think you can’t go on another step all you can do is take it one day at a time and if that get’s too difficult take it hour by hour or even breath by breath, but when given no other choice know that you can do just about anything.  

I wish I still knew this young woman I’d talked to that day on the way into seeing my mom.   How had I thought this was going to end?  How long did I think that my Mom had to live?  I knew I couldn’t do 3 more months. I remember thinking it might be days, maybe weeks but never months!  We brought her here to die in comfort.

My Mother died at Dominican Hospital on February 23, 1986. 15 months later. 

I couldn’t have imagined how I’d ever get through 15 months that day I stood next to that young woman at the window.  But now I know how I did it and I can teach you just as easily.  Day by day...you just get up and do it again.  Don’t think about it, just do it. The payoff is that I know in my soul that I did everything I could have done for her.  I have no guilt, no regret.  

I once met this woman who told me she’d just done 3  months…I said, “no, I could never do 3 months.’

A Short Ten Minute Walk

Never a dull moment

It’s just a short ten minute walk is what I’ve been told.  Living so close to the Skytrain is a real benefit, the realtor said.

  I walked home from the train today at a slow and steady pace.  It’s been one of those days where the trains were so packed that I had to wait while two trains had come and gone without enough room for one more person.  90% humidity and about 90 degrees today, it’s hot, it’s Bangkok.  I have air conditioning on my mind.  Each step bringing me closer to the cool air of my high rise apartment.  

Finally the third train came and I found just enough room for one more, but it was so crowded that there was not an inch between me and anyone.  Nuts to butts as they say in the military.   I am always so grateful that the Thai people believe in physical cleanliness and modesty so that  I am never worried nor feel uncomfortable in such tight quarters, though very happy to finally get to my stop and burst from it’s seams.  

Down the steps from the station, a three minute walk on the elevated sidewalk above the city streets, down another set of steps, 100 all in all, I’ve counted them several times on the way up these very same steps.  Around the corner I pass two 7-Elevens, one on each side of the street, a bank, a few restaurants, apartment buildings and a Starbucks located in a very cool old traditional Thai house. Sitting on the sidewalk at the entrance was an elderly couple begging.  The old woman sings a song in a high and screeching voice holding the cup with a few coins while her ancient husband plays an instrument made of a tin can and a wooden stick with some strings attached.

 Further down on the same side of the street is the Hotel Muse, all in black, inside and out, a new and happening hotel for the young, rich and famous with their Ferraris, Bentleys and Porsches.  I step around the begging couple after dropping in a few coins and then I dodge the luxury cars at the Muse.  This is south east Asia, a land of extremes.  A fleeting thought of stopping in to my favorite foot massage place I decide that no, I want to go home and get out of my wet clothes instead of spending $10 for an hour of relaxation. 

.

Getting closer to my high rise I pass through the street vendors who set up folding tables surrounded by stacking plastic chairs set among umbrellas for shade.  They cook, serve and clean right there on the sidewalk from their portable push carts they bring in early each morning.  Their carts look ancient and jerry rigged but they cook some amazing street food.  

There is a lady who brings her sewing machine and sets up business every morning, doing alterations.  She sits within five steps of the ATM machine which is right next to the grocery store, oh, so convenient.  Then there is the guy who sells roses, he’s there every day, too.  There’s a lady who makes flower garlands made of tiny pikaki flowers for a whopping 30 cents each.   I’d often buy one to lay on my pillow and it was enough to make the whole apartment smell wonderful.

I crossed the four lane busy one way street  out in front of the french bakery and walked up the  driveway of the Marriott, the guard raised the arm of the barrier so I could walk over the paved driveway up towards the lobby.  Khun Oui  greeted me with “Sawaddi Kha, Khun Brown” and a smile, she was there to open your taxi door or to welcome you home after a long day on the streets.  

On a ‘high risk’ day the guards out front will check for bombs under the cars as they enter the property by using a mirror attached to a long handle as they walk around the car checking for hidden bombs. On days when there have been threats to any western interests we have to walk through a metal detector to get into the lobby.  The first clue we have is that the  American and Marriott flags are missing from their poles out front, that and a note under our door at daybreak.  Not like we could hide but there’s no sense advertising with flags.  Life is generally normal but you have to be aware at all times of your surroundings.    

After a seven minute walk from the train, I finally made it to the air conditioning, said hello to the staff at the front desk and pushed the up button.  The doors opened to an empty elevator.  I stepped in with a sigh of relief knowing I could ride up alone.  The city is so loud, busy, hot and humid and just plain crazy that a moment of silence is golden.  And the air conditioning, ah the air conditioning is so welcome. 

Just as the doors were about to close I saw a hand reach in to set off the automatic safety switch.  The doors popped open and two people entered.  One sitting in a wheel chair being pushed by the other, both in black burka head to toe.  All I could see of their flesh was their hands from their knuckles down and their eyes.  Both wore black veils covering their noses and  mouths.  

The woman pushing the wheel chair was very tall and she had large leathery hands with thick uneven nails.  Probably labor and a hard life caused premature aging.  I was grateful for a moment that neither of them were wearing the metal shield over their nose that some Saudi women wear.  For some reason that really scares me.  

More importantly I had no confidence at all though, that these were surely both harmless women.  All my American prejudices came pouring out when I started doubting their intentions and their sex, for that matter.   And no telling what they thought of me, in my summer clothes with bare skin showing, makeup either gone or melted down my face, my hair lying flat from the humidity, no modesty at all.  They might have had just as many fears being in the elevator with me alone.

I considered that they could be mother and daughter in a loving and caring situation, one of those rare trips that each will remember forever or they could be two men hiding and camouflaged in black burka hoping to cause havoc in an American hotel in the heart of an international city to drive home the suspicion and belief that no one is safe anywhere, anytime.  

All my prejudices came to the surface.  I pride myself on being open minded, trusting.  I don’t hate Muslims.  I don’t fear them.  I know they are a peaceful people and those wearing traditional garb are usually the more orthodox so by all logic I should have been fine.  I tried to calm myself and remind myself to trust.  It gives you a whole other perspective on things when you find yourself alone in such a small and intimate setting.  Even though I’m brave and trusting, ‘alone?’

Luckily the elevator doors opened on the 20th floor, the one pushed the other and I knew enough to not say a word to them.  Allow them to be and hopefully they, too, will allow me to be. Mutual respect between cultures.  They got out and the doors closed behind them.  

Three floors later I got out, walked down to the end of the hall and unlocked my door, stepped in to the cool and silence of home and let the door close behind me.  I leaned against the door resting my head and finally reminded myself I was home.  So much life in a short ten minute walk.