My Mother's Birthday/Deathday

My Mother was born on August 24th, 1920, she died August 25th 1986, one day past her 66th birthday. I can never think of her Birthday without thinking of her deathday.

I have written about my Mother's death before but I feel a need to write about it again.  I had many feelings when my Mother died; loss, relief, a feeling of a lot unfinished business, but most of all a feeling of "disbelief".  On some level I could not believe that she allow it, dying I mean.  I always saw my Mother as overpowering, over bearing and dominant, and not in a good way.  My teacher from years ago used the best descriptive word for my Mother "formidable".

At the time of my Mother's death we had the same Doctor.  He had told me weeks earlier that my Mother was terminal and had weeks to live.  I heard what he said, but I didn't really believe it, or if I did I had buried that information so deep down that I didn't think about it.

Yet I knew the day of her birthday that year that she was dying and she was dying that night.  I stayed at the hospital all night that night.  The night started like the many others that I was at the hospital.  My Mother was not on any medication for pain because up until then she had experienced little to no pain.  Between 10 and 11p.m. that was all to change.  She had pain, a lot of pain.  There was a state of confusion at that point. (The state of confusion is one of my if not favorite states, at least it is one of one of my most familiar).  our Dr was moving from a rented house into the new house he had just had built.  Apparently he was unreachable.  This was 1986, pre cell phone days, it seems now that no one is unreachable anywhere, anytime.

Anyway, my Mother's pain was intensifying and there was nothing on her chart about pain medication...It now was 1:a.m. on the 25th of August.  I asked the nurse nicely at first, then I asked her not so nicely, then I demanded that she give my Mother something for the pain.  She explained again and again about the being nothing "on her chart" for pain medication and about being unable to reach our Dr to get his permission for pain medication.  Finally I exploded, I rarely if ever do this.  I told the nurse that I could find the Dr., his new house was just a mile from where I lived at that time.  I told her that I would throw rocks or bricks throught every window of his new house until I got some attention.  At this point she found another Dr in the hospital who ordered pain medication for my Mother, amazing what threats will do, especially when you really mean it.  My Mother was given morphine by needle at this point.  The nurse knew she dying, the blood clots that were in her leg were moving to her heart and lungs.  The nurse told me that the norphine would hasten her death by perhaps hours. Like who the hell cares, you can can live 6 hours in excruiating pain or die with no pain in 4 hours,  Duh............

My Mother died at 4:20 a.m. that morning.  I missed it.  I was in the lounge having a cup of tea and a cigarette at that time, you still could smoke in hospitals at that time.  9 out of 10 Drs had stopped smoking Camels, but smoking was still allowed.  When I walked into my Mother's room a nurse met me, she told me my Mother had passed, (I hate the term, what is the alternative? failing)  I was left alone in the room with my Mother.  I looked at her face.  My Mother had mentioned once to me about the hairs that grew out of face, I always remember her with a pair of tweezers pulling out hairs.
She had asked me if anything ever happened to her would I do this for her.  I frantically looked for her tweezers, found them in a makeup bag and straddled my Mother's body on the hospital bed and began pulling out hairs from her face.  This is how the nurse found me when she returned to the room.
She looked at me, said nothing and returned in a minute with a valium.  I climbed off my Mother's body and made phone calls to the family.  This all happened 26 years ago today.  I needed to revisit that time.  Thank You.

Saturday, August 25th, 2012..........3:51 p.m.

Feelings And Actions

Many times in my life there has been a real conflict surrounding my feelings.  Early in my life it seemed I wasn't allowed to have feeling, I certainly wasn't allowed to voice them; so my feelings were secrets that I carried inside me.  Like most secrets they began to fester and often left my sick.  It was a kind of soul sickness, one that was always left untreated.  Worse yet, I began to deny my feelings to others, and what was really bad to myself.  In time I no longer really knew what I actually was feeling.

It took almost 70 years for me to fully realize that it is O.K. to have my feelings, all of them, anger, guilt, hurt, fear and love.  It is O.K. to voice my feelings, in fact it is necessary that I do; necessary for my emotional, spiritual and physical health.  If I don't speak my fear, and anger out loud then I can't voice my love out loud either.

I don't have to act on my feelings, but it is essential that I acknowledge them.  I think that was the part where I got stuck; perhaps I was afraid that if I ever voiced my feelings I would act on them.  In reality it works the other way round, if I give a voice to my feelings they dissipate, they become less and they are manageable.

"It is O.K. to be angry but it is not O.K. to be cruel".  I already knew that, I just didn't know that I knew it.

Afternoon Thoughts

Thursday, August 2nd, 2012.......... 5:03p.m.