It’s been nearly a week since I lost my mom and I’ve had some time to reflect on her death and the events that led to it. I’m grateful to the hundreds of people who extended supportive comments and simple kindnesses.
I am an orphan now.
The deaths of my parents, 41 years apart, have one thing in common: me. I was the one who discovered my father, dead in his driveway on a hot July day. And I was the one holding my mother’s hand when she died on a cold January night.
I consider it a privilege.
For the record, my father died on July 10, 1983. I knew something was wrong the minute I pulled my car onto the driveway at his home. I wasn’t expecting a problem. I had just seen him the night before, when we watched “Hee Haw” on TV. He loved that show. I hated it, but I tolerated it for him.
This night, I was going out with friends and I needed to “borrow” $20. Dad was always a good supplier of spending money. Yet there he was, lying halfway out of the car with one hand on the door and his face toward the ground. Maybe he’s working on his car, I tried to convince myself. But I knew it wasn’t true. He was dead. His advanced lung cancer wasn’t to blame. Nor were his radiation treatments. Instead, it was a coughing fit that caused a rupture to an artery. In the quiet twilight of that summer Sunday, I spoke my last words to my father: Dad, why did you go and do that?
What went through his mind as he went to his car? As he opened the door and put the key in the ignition? As he started the engine and reached for the door?
The motor ran until it used up all the gasoline. Eventually, the battery died. Dad’s body remained there through the night and all the next day. The horrible scene will always haunt me.
Dad’s death was a life-altering event for me, a 20-year-old college kid. When he received his cancer diagnosis 10 months before, I thought we would have more time together. One of his doctors said it might be as long as five years. How could he be so quickly gone? Why did he have to die in such a painful, panicked way? Had he been treated just two years later, he would have benefitted from new protocols that deliver more targeted doses of radiation that are less damaging to surrounding tissue.
It wasn’t easy to know my father. Like many men of his generation, he rarely showed tenderness, much less vulnerability. Yet, at the end of his life, he lived as close to meaning as anyone could. He was absolutely determined to beat his cancer. But the radiation proved to be too formidable. The treatments scorched his esophagus, making swallowing an excruciating endeavor.
It was distressing to watch my strong, certain father grow weaker; to see his muscular body become frail. During those months of helping him with daily tasks, of buying his groceries and picking up his meds, of taking him to the doctor and, yes, sitting with him through endless hours of terrible TV shows, I began to appreciate him in an unexpected way. Although his body became a prison, he made of it an opportunity for discovery. In that short time, he helped me to believe in something deep and abiding and profound in human beings. For inside that body that deteriorated before my eyes, there was a person with immense questions who cared deeply about the truth. The truth was about personhood. He wasn’t a cancer patient. He was Joe. And Joe had cancer. He refused to be defined by his disease.
He wondered why, despite all his efforts, he never seemed to be able to win. He never wrote a book or made a fortune. He didn’t leave an indelible mark on human history. Because his large family suffered grinding poverty in the Great Depression, he had to quit elementary school and go to work to help support them. He and his brothers fought in World War II, but his lack of secondary education meant he couldn’t take advantage of the G.I Bill. Instead, he went to work as a meat packer; a truck driver; a garbage collector. His marriages ended in divorce. His kids rarely spoke to him. He drank too much. And smoked cigarettes every single day–for 50 years.
Still, despite a lifetime of setbacks, when he received his cancer diagnosis he was absolutely convinced that he was going to win. “I’m gonna beat it,” he said, fiercely.
He didn’t beat it. But by facing his cancer, he left me something precious: the memory of his determined spirit.
The same can be said of my mother.
Like my dad, she spent more than 50 years of her life smoking cigarettes every single day. Her death sentence was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a progressive lung disease without a cure. People with COPD can manage their symptoms by using inhalers and breathing treatments, but because the disease is progressive, even symptom management loses its effectiveness over time.
During the last years of her life, as it became clear that my mom was becoming more frail and less able to care for herself, we decided to move her to an assisted living facility near my nephew. That way, she would have someone nearby who could render aid when needed, and I could act as her Medical Power of Attorney from 650 miles away.
Over the course of the last two years, as her condition diminished and my oversight of her care increased, Cliff and I began making monthly trips of three to five days in duration to take her to her doctor appointments, do her shopping and household chores, and keep her company. We made friends with the facility’s CNAs and dietary aides, nurses and administrative staff. Eventually, we started staying overnight in her small apartment.
Mom’s greatest fear was that she would die alone. By staying overnight in the adjacent room, we brought her comfort and confidence that if she needed someone, we would be there to help.
We spent our time with her enjoying her favorite foods and watching untold hours of “murder and mayhem” TV, classic movies, and Cardinals baseball games. When we were away from her, we called twice daily to check on her. These tele-visits became our routine.
My mind and heart are so full of memories.
Toward the end of her life, she would say to me, “I know I’m a problem.” I would say, “No, Mom, you’re not a problem. You’re my mom. And I’m helping you because I love you.”
It reminded me of a story I heard back when I was in the seminary about a man who cared for his mother after she got sick with cancer and then suffered a stroke. She was utterly helpless, so the man took her in to live with him. He would dress her and bathe her, take her to the toilet and wipe up after her. And he wept because it was so awful. All the taboos came up: his mother’s nakedness, her shattered dignity, his fearful pride. Here they were, two frightened people slipping and sliding around the bathroom. But despite the revulsion he felt, in spite of the embarrassment, he said it was, finally, the most spiritual experience he had ever had. He said he had learned to love his mother the way she first loved him: naked and without pretense.
What he did was remarkable. By confronting his fear he found the courage to love. Which is what caregiving is all about.
So 41 years after saying goodbye to my father, I said goodbye to my mother. I held her up as the nurse administered her medication and then I settled in by her bedside. She held my hand. Ten minutes later, she took her last breath, and it was suddenly ended. I looked to Cliff, who was seated next to her on the other side of the bed, dozing. “Cliff, wake up,” I said. “She’s gone from us.”
And I wept as we stood to hold one another.
We summoned the nurse, who, in turn, summoned the hospice nurse. We began making calls to my siblings and nephews. Cliff left to get Jayme (my sister) as the CNAs prepared her body for transport.
After Jayme arrived, Cliff and I prayed over Mom’s body and blessed her with words we remembered from when we were young priests.
I said, “May the angels lead you into paradise. May the martyrs come to welcome you, and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem. May the choirs of angels welcome you, where Lazarus is poor no longer. May you have eternal rest.”
Cliff said, “Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her.”
We laid hands on her and then let her go.
Cezar, the hospice nurse, arrived a few minutes later to certify her death and to contact the funeral home. He asked if it was OK for him to say a prayer, and we asked in turn if he would say it in his native language (the language of the heart). Hearing his words in Tagalog, his Filipino language, was soothing and sacred.
Soon, Natalie, from Kurrus Funeral Home, arrived to transfer her body to the gurney. When it was time to leave, we processed down the long hallway, slowly, reverently. I led the way, followed by my mom’s body, with Cliff and Jayme at the back. Along the way, we stopped to thank the nurses and CNAs who provided her comfort care at the end.
It was all a fitting tribute to one whose own journey was filled with life and love. We watched as Natalie placed her in the hearse and drove away.
Like my dad, my mom was fiercely determined to live. Despite a lifetime of suffering and setbacks and sin, she taught me how to hold on to hope. Together, yet apart, they taught me to embrace my frailties and faults and carry on, regardless of whatever obstacles lay ahead. And so I shall.
I am an orphan now. But I am not alone.
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