There was a terrible snow storm in Ottawa that day. It seems that there always is near this time of the year here. Time was short. My mom had been found slumped over in the bathroom, barely breathing. Mentally, she was already gone. An aneurysm had burst inside her head, taking her away from us in a cruel instant.
I can’t recall the order of events, but a dear friend took the bus to be with me. She helped me calm down, so I could actually get packed to go to my hometown and be with family. Anyone who knows what transit is like on regular days in Ottawa, knows that when there are massive snow storms, well, the buses often get stuck (especially the articulating/accordion ones) and routes get cancelled or delayed to the point walking is faster in many cases. I will forever be grateful to her for taking time to be with me.
I was such a mess, I couldn’t figure out packing. I had just done this activity a couple weeks previously for Christmas. It was like that skill had been zapped from my brain. But after my friend helped calm me down, I was able to figure out what to put in my suitcase. I just repacked what I had worn during Christmas because the clothing didn’t really matter.
But, just like that episode of Buffy where Willow is constantly changing clothes after Joyce, Buffy’s mom, passed away in almost the same way as my own, part of me felt like it was. Like the decision was critical to everything else that was to come.
I was only able to rewatch that particular episode this year. It is one of the most expertly crafted episodes of television because it captures the situation so truly.
In my mom’s case, the doctor was pressing for a decision. I couldn’t be there because of the storm. Honestly, I think it’s good I couldn’t drive until the next day. The snow that had come down that day was far heavier than what we just got this week. It was literally impossible to drive in it and it took the city longer to clean up.
There was a video call with my brother at the hospital. I know I talked about this in the One Year post, but I didn’t really describe the reality of it. I don’t think I could before now. I watch a lot of procedural type dramas on TV, police, fire, medical, etc. On TV, when someone is unconscious and hooked up to machines, they look peaceful. The tube in their throat helping them breathe is nicely taped and it all looks clean and contained. They look safe.
It wasn’t like that. Mom’s body was there, a tube down her throat, her mouth partly open, and it just looked wrong. It was too slack. Her body was there, but she wasn’t. It wasn’t like she was sick and sleeping. It was the shell of her waiting for release. And though I experience a high degree of Aphantasia, that image of her was burned into my mind for awhile. Not exactly the final image of my mom I would have chosen if I had a choice.
Cleaning let us find rare photographs of mom to replace that with. Rare because my mom hated being in photos. I never found out why that was, but it was one of her quirks.
I suppose all I have left for stories are the shadow work type. My mom was born in the 1940s. Her mom wasn’t married, so her grandparents were officially her parents. We didn’t find this out until after her “sister” died in our home. She had lived with us, so my first experience of loss of a person was at six years old. My brother gently woke me to tell me about it. I didn’t understand until the funeral. Even though her mother was often kind of mean to me, I cried when I figured out I’d never see her again.
I’d experience many more deaths after that one. A common hazard when one is born into a large family.
Yet, none of them prepared me for the loss of my mother. It was just different.
The grief process is complex. I was angry at mom for quite awhile after. I learned she had been having headaches and refused to go to the doctor. She didn’t like or trust her doctor. Partly because it was a woman and she had a very bad experience with a female doctor in the past. Rational or not, it was also ingrained into people of her generation that only men should be doctors. That concept pissed me off too. Part of me felt like my mom was gone for really dumb reasons, but I now realize that the medical system wasn’t likely to get imaging of the type she would have needed done in time to catch it and save her. Especially since women’s issues are often assigned less criticality by the medical establishment, even today in Canada.
Four years later and occasionally it still hits me like a truck slamming into a brick wall. Most of the time it’s a subtle sadness though. Manageable.
But today, I wish I could hug my mom.
Three Years: https://thewritebuttons.ca/2025/01/17/three-years/
Two Years: https://thewritebuttons.ca/2024/01/17/year-two/
One Year: https://thewritebuttons.ca/2023/01/17/one-year/
Ten Months: https://thewritebuttons.ca/2022/10/02/more-on-losing-a-parent/
First Mother’s Day: https://thewritebuttons.ca/2022/05/08/mothers-day-2022/
First Birthday: https://thewritebuttons.ca/2022/02/20/on-losing-a-parent/
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