LIFE CYCLE | INSPIRATION
Dead Women Need Lipstick and Orange Juice
Never-ending final wishes
Mom died on my daughter’s 30th birthday. Again.
My phone rang — cutting through the nighttime silence with an ominous undertone. I wanted to keep the memories fresh from the celebratory day filled with birthday cheer, but, whatever.
The Memory Care Unit nursing station number glowed with a brightness I instantly resented.
Night nurses rarely have good news.
I greeted one of my mom’s all-time favorite RNs who, ironically enough, tends to intervene when death beckons my mom.
“I’m calling for transport to the hospital. Your mother is off and doesn’t recognize me.”
Surely enough, the ER doc confirmed the intensity of mom’s stroke and the center line shift of her brain resulting from the massive quantity of blood that exploded in her right frontal lobe. The admitting doctor bandied about the same terminology as the ER doc, using “comfort care” and “end-of-life” expressions I know well.
Both doctors spoke with a foreboding sense of urgency — can I return to New Jersey quickly?
“She’s non-communicative, non-responsive, her eyes are cloudy — vacant, she’s disconnected and…
