all correct.
What can I tell you about the past 24 hours? Yesterday was a sad day.
I received an outpouring of support, both online and via texts and phone calls, which I really appreciate. I got so many comments (43 and counting) on my initial post about Mom dying that I could not respond to them all, but I did acknowledge in a post this morning that I deeply appreciate it.
I've thought a fair amount over the past week or so about what a double-edged sword social media is, and particularly Facebook is. It allows for sharing in a way that has long worked well for me, but it's a platform that has proved problematic in many ways. Some of them relatively minor, but still problematic, as in my sharing updates on Mom's status while she was in the hospital, which I did honestly just to save time and energy while still keeping people who would want to know informed.
I said specifically in a post on June 24: " Just keep this in mind: if you hear nothing about it for a few days, it just means nothing has changed. As soon as something does change, you will hear about it here."
On June 29, Mom's biological sister, Cyndi, who lives in Northern Michigan, posted right on my Facebook wall—not in a message or even in a common on a post—"Have you heard anything new on your mom?" I found this frankly annoying. Was she not paying attention? In retrospect, I'll cut her a little slack: by then it had been five days since my last update. But also by then, Bill was in the middle of waffling on whether to take Mom off of life support. He had made the decision on Sunday, but the hospital had to call back on Monday, giving him time to have second thoughts. I wasn't about to throw any of that shit out on social media, in the middle of that kind of uncertain decision making. I knew it would be best for the next update to be just when Mom actually passed. I had already posted more than enough about her just being in the hospital.
I did get a comment on another post around that same time, give or take a day or so, from Darcy, also asking if there were any update. It was frustrating to get those requests when I had specifically said that if there were no updates, then nothing had changed.
Christopher did finally convince Bill to give the official okay on Monday though, to take Mom off life support. He messaged me that day at 4:30 that the "order would be put in." I'm only realizing just now that it was all of 34 and a half hours after he sent that text, that Mom passed away, at 3 a.m. early Wednesday (yesterday) morning. It really didn't take that long. It took me a little bit to realize that, given the message Shelley sent me in the interim time, Tuesday at 4:08 p.m., telling me she had just visited Mom. I will always love what she wrote to me: I chatted away about just stuff. She seems peaceful. Her breathing is a little labored, but strong and regular. The staff are amazing!! She's in good hands. What a perfect way to think of her on the last day she was alive.
Still, that bit about her breathing did briefly kind of delude me into thinking it could be days still, before she passed. So much for that expectation: it also occurred to me later that what Shelley said about Mom's breathing didn't necessarily mean anything at all, and she was still a lay person and not a doctor or nurse telling me that, after all. And when Christopher called shortly after 10:00 yesterday morning and I saw his name on my phone, I knew instantly what the call was for.
At least then I could finally update everyone on social media. People often complain about getting news like this in that way, but when you're one of the people historically close to the deceased, you don't want to have to make a slew of phone calls to get the word out. I did wait to post yesterday, thinking I would at least give Christopher time to call the kids first; I even thought I would wait until at least 4:30 so the inevitable onslaught of sympathetic comments would be more confined to the evening—but then Christopher and Becca both posted right around noon, so I thought, fuck it, I'll post now. And I had those 10 photos chosen on Monday. I also wrote a first draft of the post on that day, to save myself time and energy on the day the news of Mom's passing would come.
So then, after I did finish work yesterday, over the course of the evening I got three phone calls. Danielle called first, while I was making my dinner, at 5:45. We talked for a good while too, about 45 minutes. Of all my friends, she could commiserate the easiest: I joined the same club she joined five years ago, when Reg, her dad, died in 2015. At the age of 65. That was a weird thing to realize: Reg was two years older than Mom, but Mom outlasted him in age span by three years. Mom had just turned 68 on June 2, which was the last time I spoke to her. I even told her about our plans to visit in August, and to make it easier for her to remember I said, "August one-two-three!" which she repeated back to me.
I certainly did not call Mom as often as I could have over the years, but I'm happy to report I did much better than average over the last three months of her life, thanks to the timing of the calendar. We spoke at least once a month between April and June: on Easter Sunday in April; on Mother's Day in May; on her birthday in June. I even mentioned that on the phone with her and said I would try to keep calling more often. That last phone call, on June 2, lasted 39 minutes. (I love that I can look up data like this very easily on my phone.)
I'm kind of proud of myself, if you want to know the truth. I had to get things out of relationships with other people that Mom could have provided but did not, and to say I put in the effort in our relationship the past 25 years or so would be an understatement. But I still felt it was important, and if nothing else, I do think Mom appreciated it. I did feel bad about visiting her only once last year instead of two, for the first time since 2015 (I can't remember why I didn't visit in the spring that year, although I do remember staying three nights instead of two my subsequent visit the next December, which I vowed never to do again), and that being the only other time I did not visit twice in a year since 2008. But, I had too many other trips planned in 2019 and so I cut out the spring trip to Wallace, mostly just to placate Shobhit and get him to stop bitching about the expense. I promised Mom many times over that I would absolutely visit twice in 2020 though.
Well, she never got to see me even once this year. Oh well. I like that last December is my last memory of her, and I do not regret the choice not to replace it with an image of her wasting away unconscious in a hospital bed. (I much prefer the serene picture Shelley painted for me.) When Nikki posted yesterday about Mom's passing—Nikki being Mom's eldest grandchild—she included three photos, two them taken by me, and one of them taken by her: a shot she took of her own hand, holding Mom's hand, next to her hospital bed when she visited on Sunday, June 21. I could hardly handle even seeing that picture. I'm going to save a copy of it anyway, as it will have been the last photo of any kind taken of her.
Anyway. The second call came from Dad, in the middle of Shobhit and me watching Designing Women on Hulu, so it was easy to take a break and talk. This was the hardest phone call, actually. And I mean that with all the love in the world, because that's what it was: Dad calling to tell me how sorry he was, that he was thinking of me, that he was there if I needed him and ever needed to talk. To be honest, he was being the best dad he could possibly be in that moment, and I was moved by it.
He had just gotten off the phone with Christopher, he said, and I really liked something that Dad said only occurred to him while talking to Christopher: to pass on to Bill that, even if Bill had not given the go-ahead to give the TPS treatment for which there was a 4-6% chance of hemorrhaging, the hemorrhaging might still have happened anyway. Dad thought Bill should know that, in case Bill was blaming himself at all, and I thought it was an excellent point, one I had not thought of either. Now, to be realistic, I would guess the hemorrhaging probably would not have happened, but so what? Not offering the treatment still would have left Mom with an untreated blood clot in her brain from a stroke in the first place, and I don't know that there was anything else they could do about it.
By the time the 20-minute call with Dad ended, I got emotional again. I was touched by Dad reaching out—we're talking about his long-ago ex-wife, about whom if not for his having had children with her, his reaction to her death would have likely been something along the lines of "Oh, that's too bad." (And I don't mean that sarcastically: he probably would have genuinely thought it was too bad, but he would not have swelled on it.) His concern was for his sons, and he did right by us at that moment. I think Dad could tell I was about to cry when we got off the phone; we said our I-love-yous and goodbyes, and then I held Shobhit on the couch for a minute and sobbed into his shoulder, which was what prompted this post I shared last night, about how bad I feel for people going through something like this in the middle of a pandemic but live alone.
The third call was from Gabriel, interrupting my evening exercises before I was getting ready to go to bed a bit early for once. Lea's name came up on my phone but that was because apparently Tess was talking to Stephanie on Gabriel's phone.
The call with Gabriel was only 10 minutes, but it was rather nice, and I actually got some nice laughs about it. I reminded him of the time, maybe 20 years ago, he tried to suggest I adopt a manitee in Mom's name as a birthday gift for her, and tried to convince me she would actually appreciate it rather than be insulted by it. I was like, "I'm not doing that." We both laughed about it last night, Gabriel saying, "I am a monster." Not really. I mean, it's a funny memory. Gabriel always had choice things to say about my mom, but then, so did I. Granted, she's my mother to have choice things to say about.
Thankfully I have matured a lot over the years, and even though I have long had plenty of things to keep resenting her for, I pretty much stopped several years ago, particularly around the time of her first stroke. She stopped remembering things quite accurately after that, and could never have a truly deep or intellectual conversation anymore, so what was the point? In spite of the massive challenges it brought, I still say that, considering how easily she could have died with the stroke in 2014, the last six years were a gift. I much prefer thinking of it that way.
Oh. Two more things. I only discovered while I was writing this post that Barbara had left me a voice mail, at like 4:27 a.m.—I suspect she wasn't thinking at 7:27 a.m. in Virginia that it was actually three hours earlier here. Still, I loved what she said so I am going to transcribe it here:
Hey Matthew, it's me, Barbara. Uh, I just read about your mom, and wanted to call and say how sorry I am. And uh, you know, I don't enjoy being on the phone, but I wanted to let you know that I feel your pain, and I'm so glad you guys had that time together. And . . . I guess that's it. Okay bye.
I texted her back to thank her.
And finally, I want to mention what Mary Ann said in response to my email to her and Uncle David informing them of Mom's passing, which I loved: Do take care of yourself and remember that grief manifests itself in a variety of ways, all correct.
I have been saying this about grief for years, but with more negative phrasing: "There's no wrong way to grieve." I am really fond with the positive phrasing May Ann used: "Grief manifests itself in a variety of ways, all correct." I think I'll say it that way from now on.
[posted 12:25 pm]