Nineteen years ago today I got a rather frantic phone call
as I sat at my desk on the 2nd floor of the Corning Tower. I was at
my relatively new job as an Early Intervention Specialist with New York State
Department of Health. My Dad was on the
other end of the phone telling – no actually crying- to me that he thought my
mother was dying. Since we had thought this on and off for the last couple of
weeks, I initially questioned whether I should just drop everything and run. What
if it was another false alarm? Death like birth is not always swift and easy. One of my co-workers, sitting nearby,
encouraged me to go and so I called my husband, Bob, and asked if he could come
and pick me up. Bob worked downtown
Albany for another NYS Agency at the time and we typically drove to and from
work in the same vehicle. Within a
matter of minutes, I met him outside in front of the NYS Museum and we drove to
my parents’ house in Colonie.
When we arrived and I went to my parents’ bedroom, I could
see that this was probably not a false alarm.
I remember that my Mom’s legs were already becoming mottled and the
chain stock respirations had become more pronounced. Just before leaving her bedside to come home
the night before, I had spooned some ice cream into her mouth and she swallowed
it and I felt a sense of relief that she was getting a little nourishment, even
if it was only ice cream. I lay down
next to her in bed as my father paced the room with a horrified look of desperation
on his face. This man was a Physics
Professor who understood how everything worked but now death was incomprehensible,
coming faster and closer and he was totally helpless. Bob
and I decided to call my sister, Meg, a Special Education Teacher, and she made
the same decision to leave her job and come.
Our beloved Pastor, Father David Noone, was called and came over to
offer a little support, but death kept moving relentlessly forward. None of us could do a damn thing.
When my Mother’s breath stopped for longer and longer
periods of time, my father urged me, “Shake her Mary, Shake her Mary!” This had been something he was using; I was
using; for the last couple of days to stimulate her to take another breath. We had this brief, fleeting power to ward off
her dying.
I don’t remember all the words that passed between us in
that grief stricken bedroom. I do know
we professed our love and held onto to her
for dear life. After all, this
beloved woman had been so central in our lives and she was moving into another
realm. The time between the breaths got
longer, and the shaking needed to be stronger until I realized the futility and
possible selfishness of this pathetic attempt to keep her with us. I remember clearly the last breath and my
father’s frenzied request, “Shake her again, Mary, shake her” and my sympathetic,
but firm response, “No Dad, we can’t do that anymore”.
My mother was gone. How can this dreaded reality be true? How can
a mother be gone? How can one’s own mother be gone? But there was no question left in my mind, there
was a moment when it became instantaneously clear that her body had became an
empty shell. Rita Mary O’Donnell Fries no longer resided
there. We eventually left the bedroom; we knew she
wasn’t there anymore.
Hospice had been alerted when it became obvious that my Mom
was dying but they didn’t rush over. I
imagine there is a reason they delay. We called again from the kitchen when we knew
my mother was dead and we stood around waiting for the nurse to arrive to do “the
confirmation”, which was just a required formality at that point. I went back into the bedroom with the
Hospice Nurse, and remember being angry when she asked me to check for her
pulse. She knew I was a nurse but I
should have said “no”. It is a horrible
sensation to touch your mother’s wrist and feel no heartbeat. On the other hand, I felt it an honor to
wash my mother’s body, I tried to memorize her as I gently patted her with the towel.
I leaned over her and hugged her good-bye and her breath came out in response. I felt badly to be pushing the last bit of
breath out of her. Then for the second
time in my life, I left my mother’s body.
Death is a heart breaker, a nasty son-of a bitch.
We waited for the undertaker in the kitchen and when they
arrived, I purposely averted my eyes as the gurney rolled past us through the
hallway, into the living room and out the front door. I didn’t
want to see them take her away.
Now when I think of my mother, I like to remember other
things.
I like to remember the life she created for us, the dinners
she prepared, the pies that she baked, the stories she told us, the poems she
recited, the trips to the museums and the libraries, the Easter Bonnets we
bought together, the faith she shared, the strengths she exhibited, the feel of
her skin, her permissiveness, her generosity, her welcoming home, her smile and
her love. That’s what I like to
remember.
