The Final Stage

How quickly things can change and oh, what a week it has been.  Mom turned 87 last Tuesday - election night and I had a few family members over.  Mark, Adie, Will and Corinna and with all the emotions about the election and all the commotion, Mom just checked out and refused to join everyone at the dinner table.  Will and I fed her in her chair on the other side of the house and she pretty much withdrew into herself.  The next day she was up for just a little while and only in her wheelchair.  She has not been out of bed since.  Each time that we've tried she begins shaking uncontrollably and needs to lie back down.  So we've entered into the final stage.

Even saying that I find myself slipping back into denial.  Even though she's not had much more than a few mouthfuls of food for the past week and she's losing weight rapidly - I find myself thinking that this will go on indefinitely.  And it may last for awhile but not indefinitely.  She sleeps almost all the time and is less and less responsive.  Dad and I are kind of at a loss at what to do.  He went to bed early last night so that he could snuggle up next to her and I encouraged it.  He either disappears into a book or sleep or withdraws into himself and I feel powerless to help him.  I'm trying to be comfortable with just being with him and not having to talk much but that is not my strength.  Words are my comfort zone, just as they always have been for Mom which is why her sudden lack of speech is so eery.  My comfort is in letting go and seeing that I really have no control over this.  I feel numb and pretty much paralyzed.  I'm so grateful that my caregiver counselor was scheduled to meet with me yesterday and she was so helpful.  She encouraged me to get out of my head and to be in touch with my body.  I tend to live in my head so this was a good reminder...not that I've done much about it just yet.

So now it is time to let the rest of those who love Mom know that she's in her final stage.  I asked her if there is anyone she wants to see and she said "no."  That is typical of the phase that she's in and so anyone who comes to say goodbye will not get much from her - she is processing her own death and is not so concerned about the rest of us.  This is how it should be.  I do ask for prayers for her to enter into her new life with peace, joy and a deep awareness of God's Presence and Love.  I ask that you remember Dad who will grieve her death with the deepest kind of pain.  I ask for prayers for wisdom and patience as we journey this last segment of her life together.  I am trying not to judge how I'm feeling or not feeling and my prayer this morning was to lay back in the current of God's love as we travel these uncharted waters.  Thanks be to God for His unending mercy and love.