Hamilton Happenings: August 2014

I was in the hospital listening to the doctor tell my parents that my mom probably wouldn’t live through the weekend. It was late August. It felt like a huge terrible dream. She was just fine…she was just fine. But she wasn’t. A long, grueling seven year battle with cancer had finally gotten the best of her. Family and friends flew in from all over and the hospital room buzzed with hushed whispers and tears. Lots of silent hugs were given. Polite smiles. No one said it, but we knew the next time we would all see each other was her funeral. I sat with her when it was my turn, talking and crying and praying. It took every ounce of effort for her to respond. “I love you Kelly. You are the best daughter.” Two sentences. That’s all I got. I was hoping for a Hollywood ending where she would spill her heart and I would somehow feel better about what was happening. But the words she managed to get out would have to do. I knew they were the truth. She showed me her unending love every single day. The only ever time I heard her speak again she said, “I love you.” I couldn’t get enough though. I wanted to hear it over and over.

Somehow the weekend passed and she was still fighting. They delivered a hospital bed and other items that would be helpful to the house and my parents room was transformed into a makeshift hospice. We tried to keep her comfortable as possible. The house was always full of people but it was so still and quiet. The sound of oxygen pumping was the white noise that surrounded the room. We all took turns sitting by her bedside, holding hands and whispering words. Anything to try and get her to speak. At that point though, it was too much effort. There was nothing left to speak of. We didn’t have any unfinished business and nothing was left unsaid. Three weeks went by and finally being at home was too much for my dad to handle on his own. She had stopped eating, stopped drinking. My mom needed professional care and he was mentally and physically spent. Arrangements were made to transport my mom to hospice.

She arrived on September 8th. Two men lifted her onto a stretcher and drove the two miles to where she would be staying. It really was such a gorgeous place but I hated the reason we were there. Families camped out all around. Waiting. Crying. Surely it hadn’t come to that for us, right? But here we were, camped out right alongside them. A woman died the afternoon we arrived and I watched her family gather together in mourning. We cried with them, for the pain they felt, for the pain we felt, and for what was inevitable for our family. There was a beautiful courtyard in the center of the facility with a koi pond and it was incredibly peaceful. The staff was kind and we were grateful to have them there to assist. As I left that evening, everyone was sitting around watching tennis on tv. I repeated “I love you.” to my mom multiple times. Man, I sure wanted to hear her say it again. She looked me in the eyes, but no words came out. When I returned less than twelve hours later she was completely unresponsive.

I had breakfast with my dad while my sister had some quiet time with mom. We talked to the hospice staff and I think I remember him signing a ton of forms. My aunt came by and we all just sat around. My mom was having trouble breathing (as was the case for months) so the nurse thought it would be a good idea to do a breathing treatment. Somehow my mom checked out surprisingly well during her exam that morning, all things considered and the doctor had just made a comment that she wasn’t going anywhere soon. I was in the middle of writing a text to my older sister to fill her in on how the morning had gone when I heard my mom gasp. I dropped my phone and ran out into the hallway to yell for help. She had stopped breathing. We gathered around the bed crying and the nurse rushed in. I couldn’t believe the words she said next. “These are her last moments. You need to say goodbye.” She turned off the breathing machines and quietly backed out of the room. My mom opened her eyes and looked straight at my dad. And then she gasped one last time.

Mama?! Mama?! Mama?! No Mama. No. No. No. Not yet.

But just like that, she was gone...

We cried in silence clinging to her hands and each other until there were no more tears for that moment. It’s weird when someone dies in hospice. After an appropriate amount of time someone comes in and offers their condolences. And then you are expected to just pack up and leave and go home. There were many phone calls to make and only moments after her passing, our pastor arrived to pray with us. He had just missed her by two minutes. We returned to my parent’s house in a complete fog. Her room had been changed back to normal and no evidence of the hospital bed remained. A wonderful friend came by with hot chocolate and somehow the days passed and life continued to move on. My beautiful mother was cremated and I wrote a eulogy for her funeral over the course of the next few nights when I couldn’t sleep. I felt her talking to me and I felt a surprising feeling of peace surround me in the midst of the chaos. I wanted to speak. I wanted people to hear how amazing she was.

We had an absolutely perfect ceremony to honor the amazing mother, wife, daughter, grandmother, friend that was no longer with us. The pews were packed and the receiving line afterwards took hours. I smiled when I got to the podium because she had touched so many lives and I couldn’t believe how many faces were staring back at me. I stood up and spoke with a strength I know I got from her.

Amazing friends traveled from far and wide to show their love and support, even ones I had not seen in years. We got through the day. The next few days. The next few weeks. Months went by and here it is, almost a year later. I knew all along that I wanted to write all of this out. Not that I would ever forget that last day, I am continually haunted by it, but just to have it. It was a bit therapeutic to write about saying goodbye and I have certainly used up my allotment of tears for the day in typing all of it out. I think in all of this I have learned something very important though.

I never want to not talk about my mom. I don’t want it to be this weird elephant in the room. I want my boys to grow up knowing how unbelievably amazing their sweet Hattie was. I want them to know that I miss her terribly every single day and that sometimes mommy cries because she wishes she could talk to Hattie on the telephone. Carter sort of gets it. He knows Hattie went to Heaven, which he thinks is the moon but wonders why we can’t get in a space ship and visit her. Sometimes he asks if we can go to her doctor because he remembers her in the hospital. I have told him that when he sees the moon during the day it means Hattie has come along to whatever we are doing and is watching us and smiling. We talk about her a lot. Nolan can point her out in pictures. We have visited her memorial garden many times. It doesn’t make it all better by any means, it doesn’t make the hurt go away or lessen the pain of missing her. But just like writing all this out, it helps me to talk about her, to reminisce about the good times with them and remind them how special she still is to us. And gosh. This is an incredible amount of rambling here at the end trying to figure out how to neatly tie this all up with a bow. Perhaps you understand now why I have been absent for a year. Trying to make sense of all of this is impossible so for today, I will end here! If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.