My mom, in her final year
A memoir of her last year and a snippet of her legacy - 1950 through 3/18/2013
For those who loved her, words cannot express my gratitude. - Crystal
In March 2012, I had a lengthy call with my mom's diagnostic doctor detailing her condition, she emphasized comfort care. It was a death sentence. No one wanted to save her more. The family wanted her to “fight” for "survival" giving her at best 5 more years if she survived the treatment. Her fate was hard to accept for everyone. My mom was in short supply of people who could help, medical treatment requires a great amount of committed helpers. She was a former nurse. I trusted that she made an informed decision, and I reviewed the information and talked with the doctors, there was no right or wrong decision. She spent time with her family accordingly.
In the wake of her passing in 2013, I clung to a voicemail from her that was just her saying hi and to call her back. I didn’t back it up. I miss that voice clip, but it eventually disappeared and I wish sometimes that I could get it back so bad to just hear her voice again.
These days she shows up in a dream, a moment, in the warmth of the sun, a smell, in tears, in joy, in a flower, a 4-leaf clover, and in my child.
I miss her dearly, I miss arguing with her, her voice, and her aura.
Grief is dynamic, and stinging.
She would come to me in a dream at my door, with a hug, following tears earlier that day.
Nothing has changed, she reminds me. Except everything has changed.
I asked my dad recently how they met. He meanders through the details and I get lost in the music of their story. On my final visit to her, she was on a natural oxytocin high, her body looking tinier than ever. As she was confined to her bed, she told me she was on a walk with my dad. It felt symbolic of forgiveness, a final love letter for him and for all of us. I had never seen her nails painted in my life, but they were painted red at that visit, which is evidence of someone caring for her and for us.
My Mom was loyal, generous, kind, outspoken, stubborn, persistent, effective, smart, strategic, free-spirited, creative. She loved romantic gestures, made friends easily, and had a YOLO attitude.
She mentored our pregnant teenage babysitter, she prayed with a grieving mother whose child was taken in a senseless act of violence. She helped illiterate adults learn to read. She empowered women all around her to own their birth stories. She didn’t gossip. She was fiercely passionate about causes that mattered to her.
She was an activist, a nurse, a writer, a doula, a teacher, a cheerleader, a woo girl. Some would say she was crazy and annoying, or irresponsible. Maybe she was in a fun, ambitious, and left-brain (hello lefty) kind of way. Annoying, sure, she would ask what I thought and then do the opposite. My child is a lefty, and asks similar rhetorical questions like, “What movie did I just watch?” Maybe it's the exchange and connection, not the content that mattered to her.
