Four and a half weeks with my dying mother

I started writing this piece almost three months ago. But that was only days after I lost the physical form of my mother (more on this phrasing later). My original writing at that time was full of deep sadness and anger. Reading it back, I recognize the growth I’ve had in only a short amount of time, but I do know that I will be learning to live with this loss for the rest of my life. Where I am now is even more different than where I will be in the coming weeks, months, and years.

My mom was always both teaching and learning lessons. Sometimes she taught them literally (over the phone or at our dining table), but she often taught lessons by example, simply living her most authentic life in full view. So in her honor and inspiration, I am naming this ongoing series Lessons From, where I will be sharing experiences of mine and the lessons I learned from them — or in lots of cases, lessons I still need to learn from this life.

I will be writing about my own personal experiences, and the lessons I write about are for and from my own life. Take anything from them as you like, or nothing at all. These are my thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and while I would love to hear yours too (I encourage you to reply!), there is nothing to argue with. That’s all! I hope you enjoy.

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My mom passed of a rare and aggressive form of cancer, and she unexpectedly entered hospice, in her home, for the last four and a half weeks of her life. I spent every single one of those days with her, up close.

Watching someone you love die is an experience that is impossible to describe. If you’ve never experienced it, I hope you never have to. Though, to quote my favorite mildly-famed griever/author/podcast host/TED Talk giver, Nora McInerny, “I’m proud to have kept my eyes open when it would have been easier to look away.” 

Writing about this particular experience is a piece of my healing journey because shining light on it, and in turn, my mom, makes me feel less alone. Being open to talking about it is helping me accept that my life is missing one of the most important relationships I’ll ever have, and accepting that is necessary for incorporating this reality into my life moving forward.

Here are a few lessons I learned from those four and a half weeks.

There’s nothing more human or more “real life” than being with your dying mother.

During this period of time, I told my therapist that watching my friends going about experiencing “real life” was frustrating me, because I was waking up and spending almost every moment of every day sitting with my mom in her hospice bed. And she said to me (big shoutout to my therapist in general but specifically for this), “There’s nothing more human, or more ‘real life,’ than what you’re experiencing right now.” And she was (and is) right. I’ll admit, it didn’t really make me feel any better at the time (though it gives me some perspective now), but that brings me to the next lesson I learned during this time.

There’s nothing anyone can do or say to make any of this any better.

Loving and caring about a grieving person probably sucks because no one can seem to do anything right for them. The previously mentioned Nora McInerny (who lost her husband, dad, and a pregnancy in an extremely short amount of time) talks a lot about grief and people who are grieving. Check out this podcast she was on (start around minute 13 for the real content) for some practical advice on caring about someone who’s grieving. But the gist is that grieving people are the worst, and if you love them, you’ll give them grace for that. 

For me, it manifested early on by making me feel like everything everyone did and said was wrong, but I often could not explain why. There are four people outside our hospice bubble that I felt comfortable talking to throughout the whole four and a half  weeks. Everyone else was saying something that made me feel worse or bad or any number of unpleasant feelings. And no one was doing anything wrong (usually). It’s just that it felt like no one understands what you’re going through. So the real lesson here for people who are grieving, and people who love those people and just want to understand, is the only thing you can do is feel whatever feelings you’re feeling, because the only way out is through (shoutout to my boyfriend for saying that last part over and over again, and shoutout again to my therapist for helping me work on that first part over the course of the last year).

Accept that most moments will be uncomfortably, unbearably bittersweet (if you’re lucky).

This lesson will not be true for everyone (as for any and all of them), but it was true for me. I had so many beautiful moments with my mom during her time in hospice that I will hold close to my heart for the rest of my life. But every one of those beautiful moments, even just holding her hand, was held with the simultaneous knowledge that they were among the lasts I would have. In fact, even if a moment wasn’t the last, I never knew it then, so even moments that would come again were still experienced with this strong tinge of sadness. I woke up every day hoping for another day with her, but not knowing that for sure. While it was beautiful, and in part, I feel grateful that I got to even have those moments, those four and a half weeks were so, so hard for so many nuanced reasons. Feeling emotion in every single moment so deeply was more exhausting than I could ever describe. Once I accepted that each moment would feel like that, I cried more, and then I cried less. But I believe that was the very beginning of my forever ongoing healing process.

Trust the Universe.

This one feels, admittedly, shitty to say, and if it’s not what you need to hear right now, I totally understand. It certainly comes with gaining a certain perspective over time. A lot of things lined up for me and my family to be in a situation to spend four and a half weeks undivided with my mom, as she transitioned to her next journey, as she put it. 

I hadn’t been working for six months but had been looking for a job for three of those when we found out her cancer was back and was serious. Just before that, I was interviewing for a job I really wanted. I was ready to move to New York in a matter of weeks. But I found out I didn’t get the job just three days before my life turned back upside down. I didn’t have a lease to break or a job to take two months off from (which turns out is really necessary when you’re taking care of the affairs of someone who died… but that’s for another time). I didn’t sell my car and, frankly, because of COVID, I didn’t have any concrete plans at all. I’d gotten vaccinated just a few weeks before, so I felt comfortable coming and going from seeing her (in the time before hospice). 

The outcome was something I wouldn’t wish on literally anyone, but it would have been so much worse (for me) had I not had the freedom and privilege to spend that time. I give a lot of credit to the Universe for making that happen for me (though absolutely fuck the Universe for taking my mom in the process). Ultimately though, I know that I will find a way forward to build a beautiful life, transitioning into a new and different kind of relationship with my mom, and for that, Universe, I am grateful.