8/26/16
8/29/16
9/02/16
8/27/16
8/28/16
8/31/16
These pictures are a little out of order and aren't the best quality, but they are the last pictures I have of my mom so I wanted to document them. I'm going to try to recount my mom's final days so that I can always remember. This may not flow well, be grammatically correct, or make sense, but I need to write this down while it is still fresh.
On Friday August 26th, I drove to Thomaston to stay for the weekend. When I got there, mom seemed to be doing about the same as she had been the weekend before. She was sitting up in her chair by her bed and watching TV for most the day. The next day, however, mom's back was really bothering her, so she asked to lay in her hospital bed. Now, let me say this- we found out from hospice the week before when they read her PET scan report, the cancer had spread to my mom's bones- especially her lower back. As uncomfortable as mom had been this whole time, though, she didn't want to just lay in the bed. She never admitted this, but I think she was really scared that once she started spending more time in the hospital bed, she could never go back. Her oncologist told her a few months ago when mom asked "how will I know I'm dying?" that she would know because she'd be too weak to get out of bed. I think mom thought that once she had to lay in the bed, it would mean she was dying. Unfortunately, it was true. She started to sleep a lot more that next 24 hours, and hospice came in and said she was "actively dying."
Shortly after I realized mom was deteriorating, I changed my plans to go home on Sunday and decided to stay for the duration. My mother-in-law was in town already keeping the boys for the weekend so she just stayed on; I did arrange for meals to be delivered, a nanny to help out after school, and for Jake to have help with his homework. I just needed to be able to concentrate on my mom.
On Sunday, my sister, my cousin Christy, and my cousin Chris and their kids all came to see mom. Mom was cracking us up telling us funny stories and such- it all did our hearts good. However, it was on this day that mom saw a man...I can't remember what she called him (maybe the tall man, dark man, scary man, or something like this). She later asked if it was death coming for her but that she wasn't ready so he left; either way, she was very scared of this man and Amy and I were freaking out. We had heard that she would be visited by loved ones who had already passed to help take her home, but this was not someone she recognized and it was not a positive thing. Luckily by Monday, the man had left and never showed up again.
On Tuesday of that week, mom, who had been such a fighter all along, finally admitted she was tired and ready to go. I had been praying so hard for peace for her, and I think we all finally had it. It was after that that more signs were coming. For instance, she leaned over and said to someone on her right (I was on her left), "that's Beth." I asked her who she was talking to and she said "that man asked me what your name was." She also started seeing streets in front of her and she was trying to figure out where to go. She also said there were little children all around her. And not to skip ahead, but on the sunday before she died, she was in a semi-conscious state but wasn't able to talk much, but she told my cousin "I see Patti a lot." (She could already see herself in Heaven). We asked her who else she saw and she said "I see Sue (her sister), " which was a relief for my cousins because when they're mom died, we weren't sure where she was with her faith.
So let me back track, on Wednesday, Amy left to go home and check on her kids and it was just me and mom and dad (oh and my Uncle Bobby and Aunt Jackie had gotten there by that point). On Thursday, something strange happened. Dad and I were in the room holding hands with mom, and my phone rang, so I stepped out so as to not disturb mom. ( It was her hospice nurse calling to check on mom.) As I'm in the next room talking to the nurse, my dad starts yelling for me to come back- mom was really agitated and kept screaming "I was trying to die but he moved me! He moved me!" I got her calmed down but it was at this point that she said to me very frustrated, "I don't understand why I'm not dying. Hospice told me that I would die when I was ready, but I'm not dying!" It was so hard to hear that. It was at that point that I realized that she was slowly slipping into a semi-conscious state and I think she realized it, too.
After about an hour, I got mom calmed down and she said she wanted to talk to me. She asked me to help her sit up on the side of her bed and to sit down next to her. She had heard us talking about there being college football games that night, and i think she thought Tyson's first game was that night (she had said when hospice first came in that it was her goal to live to see Tyson coach his first game as head coach). Anyways, she told me that she loved me but I needed to go to Tyson's game...that Tyson needed me and the children needed me. It was the hardest conversation, but we got to tell each other goodbye and I love you. I helped her get back and bed and I stepped out for a bit to gather my thoughts; it was during this time that she started slipping into unconsciousness.
Over the next few days, people were in and out but I stayed by her side despite her telling me to leave (I did stay "gone' for a few hours that Thursday to take a much needed break and let her think the game had been played). Mom slowly started getting worse and worse. She did have moments where she'd tell us things like that she could see herself and she had "golden hair" and she said my granddaddy and our dog, Ellie, were waiting on her. Amy and I loved when she came to and could tell us stories from Heaven and what she was seeing, but hospice thought our talking to her was only making mom want to stay on Earth. They asked us to stop questioning her and trying to talk to her (in a nice way, of course), which was very difficult. And finally on that Sunday, the hospice nurse sat me down and told me that she thought that mom was waiting for me to leave until she could pass. I get it. My mom has always been very protective of me, and I knew that she would not want me to remember her in that state. As hard as it was, I had to leave. I got back to Statesboro Sunday evening, and mom took her last breath around 8:45 am Wednesday September 7th. My dad was at her side holding her hand the whole time. I'll always regret not being there for her last breath, but looking back, I know that's what she wanted. She had tried to tell me that the Thursday before.
