Today, with the advent of better health care, senior citizens are living longer more healthy productive lives.
I saw my mother, a very beautiful woman age gracefully. It seemed like she never aged, and out of minor problems associated with aging, at 78 years young, was healthy and still active.
One day, mom called and said very frankly, you'll bury me. In time though I am, "she was 78, on a fixed income," and thought she was just looking forward, and as usual is very practical.
What my mother did not tell me she had cancer. Her cancer was pancreatic cancer, the same type of cancer that is killing the actor Michael Landon. Funny, mom was a smoker, and we always joked about his dying of lung cancer.
Pancreatic cancer is a very insidious one. By the time it was discovered, it was too late, and is also one of the most painful. During the illness, our roles reversed. I became a guardian, a parent.
Mama lived alone, and able to take care of themselves for about three months after her diagnosis. One night, she called and said she has not eaten in 3 days. Within an hour, I was on the road, eight hours later I was in Buffalo.
For me, I think the hardest part was when my mom. This vibrant, beautiful, smiling person who was in the 77 looked like she was 50 years, looked old, frail and bent, and I cried. Suddenly at 55 I was facing lost my best friend, my mother. In some ways, I was looking at my own mortality, I suddenly realized how precious time and life really is.
I never thought of my mother as an old, or even aging. It has always been there, my pillow, my rock. Through it all I've been through good and some very bad, she was there. Her advice may not be what I wanted to hear, and sometimes I know they do not believe I've heard. But I did. And, as I grew older, I realized I was very much like her, had many of her ways ... the good ones and bad ones.
The next day I took her across the street. The hospital, which admitted her and kept for the next three weeks. Her room overlooked her apartment complex, I almost could not fit in the parking lot and wave to her
.Every day, I watched her waste away a little bit more, fight a losing battle with the pain, but her fighting spirit refused to give in. The hardest part was watching. Watching a very vibrant, energetic spirit is slowly giving way to a fifth mild disease eats away the body.
In the beginning we could only have fallen lumps on the hands and feet, as the disease progressed, we started seeing them. Since mom was size 10 and had about zero body fat, she did not have much left to fight with. human spirit is an amazing thing, when everything else starts to go, it seems to grow stronger. her began to soar.
After three weeks, I brought her home with me. Before picking it up, I packed bed clothes I knew that she liked, made sure I brush her, she had long, beautiful hair, still not completely silver, and her crown. As I closed the door, I realized that the next time I went though, I'd move her possessions.
and then made almost impossible to stop the 8 hour drive. Except for the gassing, and pulling her over for a cigarette, did not stop.
the next three months, some of the most painful physically and soul searing ones in my life. During the course of the sixteen week I had watched my daughter waste away in a coma, and I thought I was ready to handle all the harshness of life could throw at me.
However, nothing, nothing could prepare me.
where he once had a clean, bathed, fed, pick up after it was read, patted hugged me, it's now my turn to do the same for her.
As the pain grew, we called the nurse to help. However, the pain that his own employer, no matter how much we have given pain medications, seemed to do nothing for a long time. When the body is in pain, we have become the means. We do not want, or do not say, but the pain is the means and we lash out to try to stop the hurt.
One of the hardest punches when it came to have their hair cut. Mom has always had long hair, and as I child I used to love to sit down and brush it. Until now, even her hair touching her cause pain. At 78, her hair is not completely black, although black is not the correct word, bright silver will be a more accurate description of
.I think that cutting hair was her only concession to the pain she gave.
I remember one days out of the shower, leaning against the wall crying and asking God to her. Nobody should be in the amount of pain.
Mama's appetite began to fade, so finding something like it becomes harder and harder. Finally the broth is all to cope. So far, we realized that he could no longer care for her at home, and the painful decision to put her in the hospital is made.
One of the hardest things is to invite the remaining aunt and uncle to let them know how short the time was, Mom was asking about them, my son and grandson were out of state to visit her other grandmother. My mother never knew that a third great-grandchild was going to make appearances in several months. Although my second son was nearby, for the first time in my life I felt completely alone.
My aunt and uncle came to my son and his family were there the next day. It's almost as if they were waiting for them. Within a week she went into a coma. Mama was in a room with four other women, who kept each other company. That day, she was moved to a private room.
A few days later, just sitting there, I saw how loose it really has become, it is hardly a lump in the bed. After fifteen minutes I went. ---- I knew he knew that the body is there, but will that my mother was gone, although the body is still breathing. Perhaps for this reason, the room felt empty.
leaving the hospital, I went to a local funeral home and made arrangements. The next morning at 7:35, I got a call. Mom is no longer in pain.
My mother gave me the last hour. How to fight a debilitating illness and die in dignity,. live life to the fullest, loving those around you, have a deep abiding faith and thank God for every day
I learned to appreciate the sunsets because no two are alike, to play with and laugh with my grandchildren, to listen and appreciate the wisdom of my children have to learn from the bad, and to really appreciate and learn from good our experience and receive. All small petty slights and hurts we receive, they do not really mean much in the scheme of things.
If, at the end of my life I can show the same grace and dignity, my mother showed, then I really accomplished something this life.
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