Mom is dying, 5th post

 She’s worse today, as has been the pattern. Her speech is barely above a whisper, and she has a harder time forming her words. Her urine is scant and very concentrated. She sleeps almost all the time, but is still cogent once she wakes up. She’s forgetful, but wanted me reminded to cancel newspaper & magazine subscriptions, which is pretty remarkable that she’s thinking about such mundane things at this point. Her face is more gaunt, but her breathing is regular. Her mouth is, of course, very dry; this is the first day I haven’t offered her a small piece of chocolate, because I think she’d choke. The gel works well, and she likes ice chips briefly, although spits them out after a few seconds.

 The bed was moved this morning before I arrived, only a few steps from her chair, and now she has the TV & Muzak. She doesn’t move around in the bed, so she said yes to my suggestion of moving to the chair for a few hours. One of the aides and I did it, and she was almost dead weight, so no question she’s in the chair for the last time. They’re going to move her back to bed in about 30 mins, after 9pm, and I asked her if she wanted me to stay. She said ‘I don’t want to keep you.’, I assured her that it was fine, because she likes me to be here while she gets settled and wait to leave until she’s asleep. She doesn’t want anyone else here, although the aides stop in to visit and she enjoys that, but she doesn’t want to talk except if she wants something. She just wants to sleep.

 Someone suggested today that it is hard for some people to die with their children present. I pointed out that I’m here 8-9 hours a day (her friend is here every morning for 2 hours) so that she has two swaths of time to choose from in regards to my here/not here. We discussed her being alone when she died a couple weeks ago, because physically I can’t sleep here and stay healthy, and she said it was fine. She & I both have lived for so long by ourselves that having someone with us isn’t a necessity.

 For some reason it was very important to her to be able to change the channel on the TV today. Obviously, it’s unnecessary with me here, so I asked her why, and she responded ‘I just want to know I still can.’ After several tries (with me pouncing on ‘exit’ when strange stuff came up) she finally succeeded, and, for some reason, that gave her peace. When she woke the next time I had to break it to her that I can tolerate ‘easy listening’ Muzak, but that Jazz Muzak was too far over the line for me to stand.

 Her quote of the day was ‘Transitions are hard’. I asked if she was scared, she said no. For years she has said that the words she wants to hear when she dies are ‘Welcome home’, and you can’t argue with that. Her line up until today was ‘So far dying is easy’, but I think she’s past it feeling easy at this point.

 We’ve talked in the last couple weeks about people who have died who will be there to greet her. I asked again tonight, and she came up with a few new names. She’s not seeing, hearing or feeling anything from the other side, at least so far. She says she keeps praying to God to die, and she doesn’t understand why he won’t let her come home. (That’s when I got choked up, because what do you say to that? I had to settle for responding ‘I don’t understand either.’)

 Medically speaking she could go on for days. Being clinical I’d expect her to get more confused, then become unconscious for a few days before dying. But you just never know. There isn’t anyone she’s waiting for, I’ve asked if there is anything I could do or say to help her release and die, she said ‘no’, so it’s just the agony of watching and waiting. It crossed my mind at one point to question being a Doula if this is difficult for me, but immediately recognized that your mother dying is a special circumstance. It does, however, give me a good reminder to be empathetic with others, so there’s that. Plus, with my health, I won’t be doing vigils, as some Doulas do, it’s just not possible physically.