Losing Mom

My 82-year old mom was in a nursing home in another state, three hours from my home.  She suffered from both mobility issues and acute dementia.  We visited her whenever we could.   I remember feeding her one time while we were there, crying the whole time because I was thinking how she fed me once upon a time. 

We were told in November 2019 that she would probably last less than 6 months and would be receiving hospice services in the home.  We had a wonderful “good-bye” visit with her in the nursing home including singing her favorite hymns with my sister, my husband and sons in late November 2019.  We also visited her at Christmas 2019.  We planned to visit her during spring break 2020 (my husband and I are both teachers). 

Exactly when spring break began, the country shut down for Covid.  The nursing home was not allowing any visitors even for hospice patients.  We thought this policy would be only for a short time, but it went on and on throughout 2020.  Somehow Mom made it through that time.  I called every week to check on her and was allowed to have Facetime calls with her sometimes.  I liked to play her favorite hymns on my ukelele and sing them to her. 

Even though she could not remember who I was, she recognized the hymns and sometimes sang along, her faith in the God we were singing about still shining through.  Eventually she tested positive for Covid and was moved to the Covid wing of the home.  She remained asymptomatic in the Covid unit for the rest of her life.

In early December 2020 I received a call that she was failing fast.  I would be allowed one last visit with her, I was told, if I wore PPE with an N95 mask.  We both took the next day off school and drove 150 miles as fast as we could to be by Mom’s side. 

As we exited the interstate to enter the small town where Mom lived and where I had grown up, the nursing home called me to say that she had just passed away.  Would I like to see her? they asked.  I said no, that I would like to remember her the way she was . I asked them to cover her as I would enter the room just to be with her one last time.  

They had moved her to a room at the end of the hall next to an outer door (I guess for ease of access for the hearse).  The nursing home chaplain helped me to suit up and don the scary mask.  Entering the nursing home was surreal.  Plastic sheeting divided the hallway into sections.  Faceless garbed workers floated eerily in the air-choked hallway.  The stench reeked of death. 

The chaplain and I padded noiselessly in paper boots into Mom’s room.  None of her personal belongings were in the room.  I knelt silently near the shrouded figure while the chaplain prayed, thanking God for Mom and for her faith through all of the difficulties of life.  The chaplain then left, allowing me a private moment with Mom. 

I laid one hand on the sheet and wept, telling Mom how sorry I was that I was not able to be with her, that I loved her, that I missed her, that I felt unworthy to be raised by such a mom.  I then stood and left the room with a hole in my heart. 

Nothing could restore what had been taken from us.  Mom spent her last days locked in a facility without her loved ones, seeing only faceless masks coming and going.  If it had been possible, I would have signed a waiver indemnifying the home from any damages, just to be able to hold Mom’s hand one last time.  I was never offered that opportunity.