I was sixteen when my mother died. From the time I was ten until her death, she had a series of heart attacks and strokes and eventually suffered aphasia and lost most of her speech. She woke up one morning in December and couldn’t talk. We thought she was playing a joke because gibberish came out, but she wasn’t. Through speech therapy she eventually gained back the ability to string together sentences if she took her time. The first word she could use effectively was “no.” So when she meant “yes” she would say “no” and nod vigorously. My father and I joked that she couldn’t have learned “yes” first, it had to be NO.

I give this background because I was sixteen and rebellious. I am sure you can imagine my mother’s frustration with her little boy becoming a little man in her house when I acted out. One time we got in a particularly heated fight and she rattled off like a shotgun:  no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no-no at me.  Whatever room I went into mother followed with fierce determination that I understood what she was saying, the meaning and subtext behind this barrage, and suddenly it just seemed so absurd. I hiccupped and laughed.  My entire teenage angst and rebellion distilled down to one single word: no repeated at machine gun rapid fire speed. Perhaps having had a little too much to drink and tired of the lecture I spat back: YES YES YES YES YES!  To stunned silence from both of us.  We did not speak for a few days even after I apologized.  I think it was less from holding a grudge and more that we both felt guilty and shock with ourselves over that turn of events - both for overstepping boundaries with each other.

A few people commented to me on more than one occasion, you were only sixteen. You should not have had to go through that at such a young age.  Most people don’t face this until well into adulthood.  All perhaps true. As my mother’s health deteriorated, my father kind of checked out too.  And I will admit it was very challenging for a hormonal teen to stand for fifteen minutes while mother tried to tell me something not so earth shatteringly important (like don’t be late or at least call) when I had homework, places to be, friends to see, extracurricular activities, and stupid teenage stuff that makes perfect sense when you are an invulnerable youth, but with age and reflection I can still say it honestly  is a lame excuse. I've had 38 years of life since she died, and I wished I’d had taken the time to share just another fifteen minutes here and there with her.

The night before my mother died, I visited her in the hospital. She was scheduled to have a pacemaker implanted the next morning. I asked if there was anything I could get her and she struggled to ask for more pain medication. I went to the nurses’ station, but they informed me my mother had already taken all of the pain medication that the doctor had prescribed and they could not do anything else. I went back and explained to my mother and she struggled to open her arms. “Love,” she said. I hugged her and replied, “You know I do.” And she sighed “no.” The next day I was called out of class and rushed to the hospital. There was too much damage to her heart for the pacemaker and my mother died on the operating table. I was haunted for many years after that concerned that I was a horrible son, a complete asshole who deserved to be punished. I think I was harder on myself than anyone could ever be. I created my own private Hell where I was the jailer and appointed torturer.

One night a year or so later when I was visiting my friend Tim, his mother asked if she could speak to me privately. She had meant to talk to me much sooner, but felt it was inappropriate so shortly after my mother had died. She had noticed the suffering behind my smile and needed to share something with me. Tim’s mother was a nurse at Sumter General Hospital and was present when my mother died. She just wanted me to know how much she had struggled to live and kept crying out “Bill.” Bill is also my father’s name so when she told her he was there in the lobby, mother said “No, Bill!” She wanted nothing more than to make peace with me and see me one last time before she died. I could see in Tim’s mother’s face something of a reflection of what I had been doing to myself. Tim’s mother looked relieved that she had finally gotten this off her chest and shared her experience with me. She emphasized how it was against policy to allow me in an operating room and that although she wanted to get me from school, I would never have been given that final moment which I had craved. I’m sure hospital policy probably frowned on her sharing such information as well in our litigious society. It was a small step towards setting things straight, and it began the slow process of healing for me.

It also made me start to really remember. Like I said when my mother was frustrated or too tired she would say “no” but nod her head yes if she meant something affirmatively. I was hugging her when she uttered that last “no” to me. Isn’t it possible – even more probable – that she wanted to say “yes” back to me when I replied “You know I do [ love you.]” and just couldn't do so because of her aphasia always pushing “no” out to her tongue?

Caring for someone sick is the hardest thing I believe anyone can do. It is hard on both the person sick and the caretaker. The ill still long for their independence and as they fear death closing in they shun people or push them away. It just hurts too much. They also want to make sure that the people they care for are making good decisions and living a full life. With life like a clock winding down, I believe they push even harder than they would if they thought they had a long future to say everything and make it right. The healthy always foolishly believe we have tomorrow like it is a guarantee. The day to day is very hard on a caretaker since on top of what life throws at you, there is also what life throws at the person you are caring for. Life can never always be a day of roses, but when you are caring for the sick you can sometimes focus too much on the thorns even in a day of just a few roses.

I share this only because I’ve found from friends who have lost loved ones and my sister that people often can’t help but look back and wonder – could I have done more? We by human nature in our grief focus too much on what we did wrong, what should have been, and what we felt we could have done. DON’T. All that matters is what is. Go with what your heart knows to be true even if your brain won’t listen to your heart.

I wish I had spent more time focusing on the good times before my mother got ill, but it was so hard for many years. My mother was an amateur painter.  I have three of her oils in my house. When I look at them now a good memory comes back – or a funny one.  Even the argument we had when I was sixteen seems a little absurd in hindsight.  Years later when I finally shared with my sister about that horrible fight (she is five years older and wasn't living in the house by then) she cracked a little smile and said, “that’s mother.” 

Then she shared a couple of whopper smack downs which she and mother had when she had been sixteen.  Turns out mother actually conked her on the head with a pan when my sister came home after curfew and got sassy one night, and she had once followed my under-aged sister when her older boyfriend had secreted her into a night club. Mother had dealt a just punishment by making my sister sit at the table and drink soda while she danced the night away with my sister’s date.  I never got to see that rebellious side of my mother for by the time I had become a teenager, the diabetes and heart disease had already taken its toll. Mother was such a feisty, live-to-the-fullest spirit before she got ill. 

Now  I can again savor her memories both sweet and tart and hopefully love others and accept life more unconditionally since I have released myself from a self-imposed sentence of misinterpreted memories:

I remember my mother loving Boz Scaggs and dancing to Lido Shuffle​.

I remember she loved the Captain and Tenille's Love Will Keep Us Together. I bought her the 45 one Christmas with some of my allowance.

We watched Lawrence Welk when I was very little and they laughed when I imitated his "Wonderful, wonderful" twirling with my Dixie riddle cup.

When I fell in love with trains, she paid a seamstress to make my bedroom's train curtains because she wanted my room to have a real Lionel train set look.

She taught me how to make French toast, and then told me I couldn't cook without her present.

She never got to see me debate, act, or give a speech, but she always read anything of mine that she found lying around and nodded encouragingly.

She nested my hated English peas in mashed potatoes to make them more palatable.

 

She always made me two sandwiches for school lunch each day although I gave away one because being the stick body that I was I didn't have much of an appetite back then. She worried I wasn't going to be strong enough for this world ever since I came out of the incubator as a screaming little bobble-head.

She knew I was "different" even before I admitted it to myself and she didn't care.

I hope your loss experience is nothing like mine. But if you do have any regrets, creeping thoughts about what you should have done, or dwell on a bad memory – read this, and know your dearly departed soul loved you with all his/her heart and appreciated every minute he/she spent with you on this Earth.