My last post was announcing the death of my father. This post is to note, months later, that my mother died in May of this year - just shy of six months after my father. They left me. Just me. No siblings. I feel their absence deeper and deeper with each passing day. Not sure that’s good or normal. It’s a horrific loss. They were my fan club. I miss them terribly but realize how fortunate I was to have them for so long. Mom was 92 when she died and Daddy 93.
Mom had a mechanical mitral valve replacement in 2009 which required her to be on Coumadin, a blood thinner, to keep the valve open. If the valve were to clot, she’d have a stroke. She’d been hospitalized so many times since that procedure due to internal bleeding - usually intestinal and extremely difficult to find and/or stop. This always placed her between a rock and a very hard place - bleeding but needing the blood thinner to keep the valve open and functioning.
This time, she had two different admissions through the ER - first one on Monday, April 25th with a hemoglobin (Hgb) of 6.8 (normal range is 12-16 gm/dL). During this admission, she had a bleeding scan where they thought they saw the source. When they did an endoscopy to try to fix the problem, they couldn’t see the source but did attempt to add a fix to the area that was usually problematic. She was discharged to a rehab facility at her senior community on Thursday, April 28th. On Tuesday, May 3rd, Mom was once again admitted via the ER for bleeding but this time with a Hgb of 4.9. Things were not looking good.
In the wee hours of May 4th (roughly 3:30 AM with Mom having been admitted to the hospital for the second time), I was leaving the hospital and crossing the big parking lot to my car. There was something that looked like a quarter or a half-dollar directly in my path. I bent to pick it up and immediately broke out in goosebumps. It was a pig coin. My father, who you may remember died on November 24, 2021, was a policeman. When people began referring to the police as pigs, Daddy started collecting them. He had over a hundred made out of everything - clay, wood, crystal, coal, etc. etc. People gifted him pigs. He even wore a pig tie-tack with his uniform. There was/is absolutely no worldly explanation for me finding this coin. The coin that was so directly in my path that I would have stepped on it had I not picked it up. I stood there in the parking lot, looking up, with the coin in my hand and told Daddy not to worry, I would take care of her and would be there with her. His beloved Shirley whom he had loved since he was 16 years of age and been married to for 70+ years.
It was a vicious circle - she had 7 units of blood in all and they drew blood every 6-8 hours around the clock to check her Hgb. So, they’d giveth and then they’d taketh away. Her Hgb would go up and then down again. Finally, we made the decision to stop the blood thinner and her other medications and called in hospice. She was once again discharged to the rehab facility at her senior community on May 13th. She passed away on May 17th with me by her side. I have had the privilege of being with both of my parents as they took their last breaths. They were there when I entered this world and I was there when they exited. Wouldn’t have traded those moments for anything.
My mother was an angel on earth. A woman who believed in “pretty is as pretty does” and who always thought of other people. To the very end, she was sending emails and cards to celebrate a friend’s birthday or wish them well. The day before she passed, with me sitting nearby knitting, she played on her iPad, checked Facebook, watched her favorite DIY blogs, and dozed. While she was dozing, it was like she was having a party! Her facial expressions were very animated and I heard her talking to Lily (their precious dog we had to put to sleep in 2020) and others. She would wake herself up talking. When I asked her with whom she was talking, she’d recount the conversation word for word including the person’s name. These conversations she was so animatedly having were with friends who had all passed. The veil was thinning.
The pig coin and the conversations are proof to me that life continues - just in another form. I am their legacy. They live on through me.
Mom’s memorial service, exactly six months after my father’s, was lovely. She used to teach decoupage classes are a local craft shop and her urn looked as if she had made it. It was beautiful. The service was held at Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church in Danville, Virginia. The church she joined in 1937 at the age of 7 and was married in in 1950. The organist/pianist was a man who taught music at one of her schools and his wife had been a student of Mom’s in her early years of teaching. The vocalist sang Mom and Daddy’s high school song, “If I Had My Way”. I had Mom’s handwritten “famous” Snappy Cheese Wafer recipe copied and inserted into each bulletin for people attending. I then placed the recipe, along with a note to Daddy, inside her urn and buried it with her.
I wrote/read the following about her and I’d like to share it with you ——-
My Mother, the Tough Cookie
My mother. Shirley, Holmonee, Momma, Mom. She referred to herself as “tough cookie” and she was. She was a loving and caring daughter, and daughter-in-law to her parents and in-laws. She was a working mother who always found time for Daddy and me. She accepted two little grandsons from South Korea with all her heart and told everyone she could about them. Over the last ten or so years, she endured many hospitalizations related to her mechanical heart valve and the blood-thinner she had to take to keep it open. She watched as a Code Blue was called on Daddy and he was resuscitated in 2013. I’ll never forget the heart-wrenching voicemail she left me as she was pushed up against the wall witnessing the horrifying events of that morning taking place before her. After Daddy’s Vascular Dementia diagnosis, she made the very difficult decision to leave the Grove Park home they built and moved into two weeks before my birth. She made this decision seem easy but I knew it was anything but. She bore the grief of separation when we placed Daddy in Memory Care and then COVID shut the world and the facility down. It was 370 days before she could sit beside him, touch/hug/kiss him again. Then, finally, she bore the ultimate grief of losing her husband of 70+ years.
The “tough cookie” made the absolute best of any and all situations. She always saw the best in everything and everyone. She was the strongest woman I’ve ever known.
She was a teacher, a planner, and an organizer. Her spices were alphabetized and she had an inventory list for her pantry checking items in an out so she’d know what she had. She had me bring the “funeral folder” to the hospital during the last weeks of her life. She looked through everything to make sure I had the information I needed to plan her service. She even made me type up her obituary so she could proofread it. The Daddy in me told her, “You know I can rewrite it, don’t you?” She asked me what I would say. I told her that I would simply write, “She was a tough cookie, but she has finally crumbled.”
My mother believed in God, her family, her friends, good people, a good recipe, a good book, luncheons, thank-you notes, and Oil of Olay. The kind in the pink bottle. She was also the kindest woman and she lived to do for others. Little kindnesses - a card, a treat in a neighbor’s mailbox, a “thinking of you” phone call, an email, a jar of flowers free for the taking, etc. She loved email and Facebook and keeping in touch with everyone. Making others happy made her happy.
My mother - the “tough cookie”. She loved life and it loved her right back.
During Mom’s last few days, a link popped up on Facebook for The Day She Dies. I read it and was so moved. I wrote the author and told her my mother was ill and would like permission to share it. I didn’t know it would be just days before I did.
I write all this today to get it out of me and recorded. Hug your loved ones a bit tighter today, call those you haven’t spoken with in a bit, send a card or an email. Life is so very precious.
As always, thank you for reading.
What a beautiful tribute. I have such fond memories of Shirley and her kindness. You were blessed to have such loving, committed parents.
Posted by: Carol Kunk | October 26, 2022 at 09:41 AM
I was blessed to have known her and you. You had a great family and I know you miss them dearly. You are the product of their love and it shows in you. Hugs my friend.
Posted by: Robin Crittenden | October 25, 2022 at 03:32 PM
I didn't know your mother but she was obviously very a wonderful lady because she raised a remarkable and talented daughter. You were blessed to have them in your life for so many years.
Posted by: Valerie Compton | October 23, 2022 at 04:44 PM