It’s New Years day…2010. I’m sure everyone went out and had fun celebrating last night. Me? I stayed home and went to bed around 11:45. Three years ago today, actually almost to the minute of me writing this, I received a phone call from my dad to come home because the paramedics were doing CPR on my mom and it didn’t look good. Talk about a wake-up call…that was the last thing I was expecting to hear around 9am when I answered the phone hung over from a night of fun. I don’t think I’ve ever moved so fast or been so scared in my life though. Getting home was a blur, and not because I probably maintained a speed of at least 100mph. My dad kept the updates coming but it wasn’t looking good.
Where I went to school was only a 25 minute drive from where home if you followed the speed limits. By the time I was getting off the exit, my dad called again to let me know they were taking her to the hospital. I was turning down our street as he told me this and for some reason I stopped in the house. No one was there but I was lost by this time as I’m sure most people would be. I quickly got back in my car and got to the hospital where I met my dad by the ER front desk. We were escorted into a “Family Room” down the hall. Next thing I know, a doctor walks in with a priest and my dad breaks down. Now I’ve never been in this situation, and being in the state I was, I didn’t know a priest meant bad things…but oh yeah, it does.
The doctor told us there was nothing they could do, her heart stopped and it wouldn’t start back up. My mom, the lady with the biggest heart in the world, couldn’t get it working again…I guess she had given too much. I immediately went over to console my dad and tried to stay strong. This next part pissed me off and still does today. My brother was at work and on his way, and the doctors knew that but didn’t wait. He showed up after they came into the room and he could tell what happened by the flood he walked into. I know he was closer to her than I was, and I was mad they didn’t wait for him to get there.
We then prayed with the priest and headed back to the room where I was the last one in and almost pulled a 180. Just the day before, I had seen my mom when she came down to school with my dad to watch a basketball game like they always do. After the game, I went down to talk to some people on the court, when I was done I turned around to see my mom moving gracefully, with excitement and a huge smile of love on her face. That image is still in my memory and I hope it never leaves. That was the last time I saw her face alive. I turned down dinner with her and my dad that night to go out to eat with friends who sort of stood me up and will always regret that decision. But there, in a hospital bed with tubes and wires everywhere, my mother was pale and lifeless. Each of us went up one-by-one and said our goodbyes, and left the hospital as an incomplete family, never to be the same again.
Weeks went by before the autopsy showed up. She had too much fatty tissue in her arteries, and the right coronary one going to her heart got too stiff and cracked. The doctor said there would have been about a 10% chance to save her life if that had happened while they were doing open heart surgery. That still scares me as she was the healthiest person in our family. Always on her feet and on the move helping everyone else before herself. Heck, everyone saw the ambulance at our house and thought it was for my dad. Shock was everyone’s reaction when they found out it was my mom, at only 54 years young.
The funeral, while a terrible situation, was so nice. My mom was a nurse, and nurses are helper people, but I never could have imagined how many people would show up. The line to give condolences never seemed to shorten the entire viewing. It was great meeting so many of her fellow nurses and even patients that all came to tell stories about her…how hard she worked and always with a smile on her face. That’s how I’ll always remember her though.
At the time, I had just finished my undergrad and commencement was earlier that December. My mom was so proud of me and to this day, I’m so grateful she was there to see that. I have a photo with her and my dad after the ceremony that’s the last one of her ever taken I believe. There I was though, fresh out of college, ready to start a new year and a new life, and just like that she was gone. So was all of her advice on what I should do next. I was a pretty sheltered kid growing up, and pretty much did whatever she told me. I quite a good job with an amazing opportunity approaching and went back to grad school at the same place I received my undergrad because I wasn’t ready to leave my friends. I needed them to get through the situation. Now here I am three years later, and I still feel a bit lost inside without her advice.
A few weeks later I had a dream, everything was blurry and it was like standing in a giant room with people just moving everywhere in fast forward. Then across the room I saw my mom, starring at me with that same smile on her face as I saw after that basketball game. She was the only thing I could make out in the whole dream, but right then I knew she was okay, and I was going to be, too. Looking back at that, it was almost like she was giving me some advice about how fast paced life can be, but always to keep a smile on my face and stay happy no matter what happens. I’ve tried to stay that way about my life, but sometimes it’s tough but I’m doing the best I can.
A few weeks ago I almost sliced my finger off with a knife and had no choice but to go to the ER. It was terrible being in there. The room they checked me in at was right across the hall from the “Family Room.” The whole time I’m sitting there answering questions, I was starring at the label on that door remembering how I felt in there that day. When I was taken back to one of the patient rooms, I had to walk past the room they took us in to say goodbye. Three years later and everything’s still so vivid. Life has changed so much, and I have yet to discover if any of it has been for the good. All I know is that day, January 1, 2007, God took the most important woman in my life, and the only justification I can come up with is that he needed the best nurse in the world up there to help him out.
I think that’s a good reason to fall asleep before the ball drops…
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