Daylight
I saw my mother die right before my eyes.
It was a long struggle. A fight literally to the end. Day after day. Day after day, after day after day after day after day after day after day after day . . . the blistering, bloodsucking, belligerent, evil hearted, and cold, alive but dead. Crawled and squirmed, and grew, and chewed at my mother’s harrowed form, affecting inside and out – the breast, the lung, and the, oh, so crucial liver. Yellowing the skin, while chemo came out in chunks of hair. And the uncontrollable releasing of fluid. The pain, the dizziness, the confusion, the fear.
I saw my mother die right before my eyes.
The last days . . . Comatose, coming and going . . . floating on morphine high. Yet knowing. Being oh so aware of that moment of no return. As I laid in bed with you three days before your trip to the hospital and your eventual transition, your breath was heavy and labored. You jerked and twitched, moaned but never changed your position. You were on your back. Arms to the side. Face up. Head propped up on pillows. I know these things because my eyes never left you. Deep down inside I was hoping that you would wake up and tell me everything will be OK.
I saw my mother die right before my eyes.
Black piss. Mustard color skin. Protruding belly filled with poisons. The awareness in your eyes that your time has come. Hospital. Hallucinations. Morphine . . . drip to drip. A blank feeling. A blur in time. A disbelief. I can’t write anymore. A despair so deep it has no words, no definition. It’s there, though, searing your mind. It’s just there waiting to undo you . . . rip you apart.
I saw my mother die right before my eyes.
“Delicately now, we don’t want to hurt her,” I instruct. “We just want to wipe her off before we change her nightgown,” offers my aunt shakingly. “Okay,” is my reply, as my aunts are busy fussin’. Cradling my mother’s head, I put my lips as close to her as I can. I whisper, “Mommy we're going to help you get more comfortable. Think about something happy, okay?” “Balloons bright colored balloons . . . floating up into the sky. How about flowers, brilliant and beautiful?” And as the words faded from my mouth, my mother’s head slowly turns in my direction. Her eyes rolling left in the sockets, seeming to scan the room, looking for or at something, someone. The iris bleeding into the white. Right there, in my arms, her chin settles back into her jaw leaving her mouth slightly ajar. Her eyes fixed. Staring longly. Staring blankly. It is at that moment my mother gives up life. We open the window for her spirit.
I saw my mother die right before my eyes.
I came home from California my gut was beatin’ me down. 2 years was all that she had left. And I thanked God that I saw my mother die right before my eyes. I wouldn’t have it any other way!