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A Decade of Grief: My Journey of Healing and Self Discovery Part XII: Facing Mom’s Loss

Writer's picture: Joyce AnnJoyce Ann

Talking about everything but the pink elephant in the room. I was making great progress in therapy but I hadn’t brought the one subject that sent me there in the first place. I knew that it was going to hurt. Going to be hard. And I didn’t know how I was going to be afterward. Nonetheless, I went in ready to work and then Tony dropped a bombshell.

He tells me I have four more sessions with him because he has accepted a position in Colorado. All the color must have left me because he asked if I was alright. He actually said he didn’t know how to tell me because I have been working so hard on loss and we clicked so well. We took some time to process that but I did say I did not want to break our groove especially now with limited time.

Mom. Same question. “Without thinking about it, what will you miss most about your mom?”

“Everything.” I couldn’t pick one thing. I still can’t. I miss everything about her. So we had to break it down a bit more. My first assignment (by now mom’s house was sold and I was living with my fiance in Country Club Hills) was to find one thing I kept of mom’s and journal ‘why I kept this item’. Not an easy task, but I chose something I found in a puzzle book she was working in weeks before she died. It was a piece of paper stuck in the pages which reads: 

“I don’t want to be missed here on earth; I would rather be welcome in Heaven!” As you can see by the picture, I have attached it to my favorite picture of Jesus welcoming someone home to Heaven. I learned that choosing this as the first thing I went to helped my process the loss in a way I hadn’t thought of before. That while mom was sick, going to dialysis 3 times a week, suffering from vascular dementia which took her short term memory from her and not being able to live alone anymore, she never lost her faith and was ready to go home; joyfully. This opened my eyes that her death, like Jerry’s, was imminent but I didn’t want to see it. It took me back to the day before my mother died. I took her to her dentist appointment, when I checked her in, the receptionist looked at her and cried, “she looks so weary.” I looked at my mother for the first time since I moved in with her three years ago. She did look weary. The next morning, I packed her dialysis bag, made myself a cup of coffee and sat across from my mother at the table while she ate breakfast, “what are you staring at?” she asked. “Only the most beautiful mother in the world.” I just stared at her. I dropped her off at dialysis, told her I loved her and ran my errands. When I picked her up, she wasn’t feeling well. I turned the car around and took her to the ER. We were only in a room 15 minutes when a nurse was helping her get a gown on, I was talking to the doctor, she called my name and then I was rushed out of the room, Moments later a nurse came out and said, “her heart has stopped but the brain is the last organ to die. You can talk to her.” I told her I loved her. I thanked her for being my mom. I told her I would be okay. That I would take care of her dog. That she could go. To give everyone up there hugs from me. I told her to rest in peace, her job here is done. And with that, the nurse said she was gone. I kissed her forehead, her cheek and held her hand as I cried. I was going to leave the hospital without her. I was about to start my life without my mother.


Next week: Getting through the funeral


Until next time…


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