Calm within the storm

The breeze picks up in bursts of power rustling the branches, their movements staccato hissing in the air. Low rumbles ebb and flow across the distance and resonate in my chest. Dark gray blue clouds gather and roll gently but continually through the sky. The air smells of pending dampness; that earthy, musky scent that promises rain. A beam of light breaks through to reflect glittering gold on the swells of the lake surface even as lightning splits the sky into long streaks and bursts of brilliance. It is always exciting to see lightning as it occurs, such an infinitely brief glimpse of a split-second phenomenon. Amazing, yet soon the rain will drive me indoors to stay dry, but for now it brings me joy to watch the power of nature, the power of God.

It is just that harnessed power that I am focusing on today, having gotten my wits about me as I sat and watched the storm roll in. It is going to be a tough one today, and if I can harness even one smidgen of that power and embody that today, it will be a miracle. The buzzing of my phone brings me into the moment. I glance at the screen to see my youngest sister, Joyce calling. Taking a deep breath, I pick up the phone.

Our mother entered the hospital three days ago and has steadily declined each day. At 93, her physical health is shot; chronic UTI’s, congestive heart failure, osteoporosis, A-Fib, constant back pain, a shoulder that only works occasionally, failing eyesight, and memory that is strong one day and addled the next. Anyone who has had a loved one decline as they age, both physically and mentally, knows that it is not only excruciating to watch, but it also breaks your heart every day. She went in the hospital with issues they suspected concerned her heart as she drifted in and out of consciousness. Every test has come back with either inconclusive results or a finding that was inconsistent with her condition or of the type that “due to her age, there’s not much we can do.”

“Hello” I say pressing the button, silently praying for about 100 possible reasons for the call to be about rather than my mother’s health meeting today. Typically skipping pleasantries, Joyce starts the conversation as if we were already in the middle of it. "We're heading to the hospital at 2:00 and wanted to ensure we're on the same page," she began. “Jay and Darlene will be all about pulling the plug, you know Diane just cannot wait to get her hands on any money Mom may have and resents “wasting” it if Mom isn’t getting better.” She barely paused to breathe, before continuing “It’s not like she and Jay aren’t well off, his company just got bought and you know he had tons of stock” she paused, placing her hand almost over the phone’s microphone to yell “No RJ, I told you it’s in the kitchen. No, you had it last” she yelled, paused for a mumbled response then irritated, grumbled, “I will look for it I a minute, jeeze…”

Without missing a beat she continued her tirade “It’s like it is just a random person, not his mother, and don’t even get me started on Darlene, has she even been down to see Mom since she’s been in the hospital? nope, she didn’t want to waste a trip is what she told me. How fricking cold is that?”

The rain has started coming down in sheets of solid water. Got to love a Florida storm. The water flowed from the gutters in torrents, creating mini puddles in the parched yard. As I listened, I cracked a window to let the heady scent of the storm fill my head and my house, such a clean smell, so pure and so life affirming. How ironic.

When Joyce finally paused, or at least I believe it was when she paused as I had semi stopped listening to the words that had been on replay at our every call since this ordeal began and, needing to truly consider all options, I asked her what she considered the best alternative and why and how she might envision the next days, weeks, months if we went against mother’s wishes and prolonged her life.

Mother was a nurse, she graduated and worked for a few years while she and my father dated, then stopped to raise her four children. When I was in high school, money was tight so she went back to work, busting her butt being a floor nurse on an orthopedic floor until she retired. It was a physically demanding job, but it gave her purpose and a sense of responsibility that changed her into a more confident woman. But those nursing days also taught her that prolonged life, being kept alive on a ventilator, applying heroic measures were not always what was best for the patient.  Those actions would most likely bring pain to her, and that was something I could not allow.

“Well, we can come down as often as possible to help out and I would hope that Jay and Darlene would step up and pitch in to work on getting her back on her feet.” Joyce replied with a non-response that meant that she had not thought beyond her own discomfort at the situation, that she had not considered what prolonging our mother’s life would mean to all of ours.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. I knew what that meant, the first few days everyone would be at the hospital or at her facility running around fussing over her, if she was conscious. They would all come at the same time, making a crowd in moms’ room that created nothing but a loud and hostile environment, not ideal for a recovering patient or even worse for an unconscious, uncomfortable or unaware one. After a few days, they would wander back to their lives and the day-to-day care would fall on me. Again. Not that I want my mom to die. I really do not want her to die, but if she is gone, then let her be gone. If her pain has gotten to the point that she is unconscious, do we want her to regain consciousness? Where is the line of decision? How do you know when that tipping point has been reached?

As all of that ran through my head, I ignored her statement and told her that I was not ready to make a decision just yet. I want to hear everything the doctor and nurses have to say before I allow myself to really decide. “I want what is best for Mom, not for our feelings, not to postpone our grief, what is going to be the best for her. What will be the least painful, what does she want? Until I know these things, I can’t know what to do.”

Attitude barely concealed, Joyce huffed, “fine, but if you waiver, you know those vultures will pounce, and then Mom’s dead.”

I close my eyes and lean my forehead against the cool glass of the window and inhale deeply, hoping the rain scent will bring me some measure of peace. “Ok” I say, not sure to what I am agreeing, just trying so hard to end the constant pressure of this situation, “I’ll see you later.” I hang up even as she is responding, nothing I won’t hear later, I suppose.

The storm continues to rage, and I sit and just watch it, mesmerized. An immobilization that I cannot recall ever having experienced before, and it is transformational. The clouds shapeshift constantly as the storms breeze whips them around. This visual display of strength and grace was both life affirming and terrifying. And yet it calmed me in ways that all prior methods had failed; meditation, specific breathing techniques, yoga, none of these dissipated my anxiety like the storm has.

Part of the peace, I muse, is because I have had the time and place to say goodbye to my mother. Reflecting, I recall the day had begun like most of my visits; me rousing her from her mid-morning nap upon my arrival, with an admonition to put in her hearing aids. She goes through the motions as I unload this week’s groceries and put them away; tossing the remnants of partially eaten meals I had brought the previous week. We yell a pseudo conversation back and forth, she, not hearing anything I say, me, talking as loud as I can with no response.

Once her sink is clear of the dirty dishes, I return to her, and she pleads helplessness in putting her hearing aids in and once again I put them in for her. We changed out the microscopic pieces that need periodic changing last week, so that chore is bypassed but replaced with trimming her nails. We chatted an oft repeated dialog as I went about clipping them to a reasonable length, mostly about the people who are supposed to be doing this here in the facility. We sort her mail, check her hygiene supplies and at last settle in for the lunch I have brought.

The conversation turned to photographs, which it has of late; pictures are the link to her memories, to the people and places of her past. The images spark old recollections and, as always, I allow her to reminisce and retell the important stories of her life. At times it is her life before she was married, others it is the short time between her wedding and her first child, yet the bulk is about her life after children, things that I can talk about with her. This day it was about one of our many trips to Standing Indian Campground in North Carolina.

The family line was that I hated camping. No one bothered to dig into this assumed fact, it was just an oft repeated family fact. “Oh, Marie hates camping” spat out as if I hated puppies. “You are going to the cabin?” asked incredulously, “but you hate camping” they would taunt. Well, yeah, what I hated was having to trek across sandy rocky paths, having to find and go through the effort of putting on shoes in the middle of the night, in my PJs, carrying a flashlight to end up in a public latrine which was just a toilet over a hole in the ground in a gag worthy, odor filled, icy brick building. I hated no warm water. I hated the isolation from other humans. I hated that we shunned other people like they were lepers. I hated that we went to the exact same place every year and did the exact same thing repeatedly.

The reality is I like to be outside, I like the woods, I like to hike, but and it is a fairly large but, I want to sleep in a real bed after having taken a real shower with hot water. I like being able to wash my hair in water that is, at a minimum, tepid, not freezing. I like seeing new places and exploring new terrains. I like being social with other people. Since no one ever asked me, I was the difficult one who was “put out” every summer. Oh, and yes, it really would have been amazing if we hadn’t always ended up camping on my birthday.

This particular conversation was about the time she had seen a bear and was trying to make it leave by loudly whispering “shoo, go away bear, shoo…” and miraculously it did. We were experienced enough to use the appropriate precautions with food and other bear luring items. Laughing about the absurdity of her comments to the bear, she, uncharacteristically, leaned over and took my hand, and said “I know you hated camping” I started to interrupt her to plead my case, but she continued, “but it was what we could afford, it was what we knew and it was what your father and I enjoyed.” I nodded to acknowledge that I did understand that was the way things were. “I know” I said quietly. She continued, “we did the best we could, just like you have done the best you can, you never know what your kids will find fault with in how you raised them.” I nodded in agreement and humility.

We sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, each lost in our own thoughts. As I sat there, I recalled something I had heard about, a Hawaiian healing ritual called Ho’oponopono. In this you express your feelings to someone, especially someone who is aging or in their final minutes by saying: I love you, thank you, I forgive you, forgive me.  

That is exactly what I did in that moment. With those words all the decades of resentment, anger and disappointment all faded away into the ether and all that remained was the love and forgiveness and joy that had been buried under a mountain of missteps on both of our parts. For me, and I do believe for her as well, it was a cathartic and long overdue communication that reconnected us and brought us peace.

Recalling those precious moments, I was filled with a sense of calm where I knew what needed to be done. Knowing that nothing could make my mother whole again, that nothing can turn back the clock and reignite her vitality, that she had a good life, she loved and was loved, she wasn’t a perfect person, she was just the best version of herself, and how perfect is that? As I continued to sit and allow the sensations of decision to wash over me, almost imperceptibly, the rain begins to lighten and slow, the thunder is a faint distant murmur, the lightning is replaced with golden streaks of sunlight breaking through the dissipating clouds.

My eyes soak in the sunlight alerting me to the storm’s final remnants dissipation and the final sweep of the clouds. With clear skies, a clear head, I am ready to go into what will be the darkest of days, but doing so, I am armed with the knowledge that even after the fiercest of storms, the light returns, and I look forward to those days bringing the power of nature and the power of God to soothe me.