Welcome to the Dead Parents Society!
The exclusive club you never wanted to join
Loss hurts…duh. There are plenty of self-help blogs and journals that reinforce how death is a part of life and (guess what?) we have to find ways to move right along with it.
But what happens when you lose both parents to mental health disorders by the age of 32?
The grieving process is that much more complicated, and wrought with the usual recriminations of the what-ifs and I-should-haves. Valid or not, these are the raw emotions that come trickling out when faced with your own mortality; especially when you are also genetically predisposed to inheriting the very traits that led such loss.
My Father, the Alcoholic
On April 20th, 1996 my alcoholic father’s liver finally refused to cooperate. I picture it like his organs doing a slow dance until the music finally faded and the room went dark.
To be fair, he had a good run, all things considered. The man drank like a fish. Truthfully, being a young kid with no real awareness of addiction, I kind of thought he just had poor balance and reeked of rubbing alcohol and Fat Burger — one of our favorite dinner spots.
Once I asked about his weight. He responded that he had swallowed an entire watermelon. Naturally, my naive 6-year-old mentality accepted that as fact. For years I would avoid ingesting any watermelon seeds…I mean, have you seen those things deform into a beer gut??
In stark contrast, following their divorce 5 years earlier, my mom had successfully gained sobriety and always seemed poised to say “fuck you!” to whatever obstacles stood in her path. My father’s death included.
This was a lesson in perseverance that I would carry with me throughout my adolescence and adulthood.
Persisting as a Single Mom
So my mother raised me on her own, with very limited income, no familial support, and with a generational divide. When I was born in 1987, she was already 40 years old and had just experienced life as a secretary. Female ambition was pretty much curtailed entirely in the 50s, 60s, 70s…(unless you had a great support system in place), so the class and gender divide was at an all-time high. But she wanted more for me. And she wanted more for herself.
After my dad died she went back to school. But not just for a few classes or something easily attainable: she, as a single mother, put herself through a bachelors AND masters program to become a clinical therapist. She graduated with highest honors and secured a competitive job amongst significantly younger applicants (sorry, ageism, better luck next time!). I was inexpressibly proud.
She instilled that in me every day: that I was capable of anything, and should always strive for everything that felt just out of arms reach. Because living in your comfort zone does just that…it makes you comfortable.
Yet there was something lurking just beneath the surface: her own daily struggles that were never openly discussed, but would eventually manifest into much larger health problems. The pills in her medicine cabinet were no longer effective in keeping her illness at bay.
My Mother and Major Depression
Looking back on the realities of my teen years is unsettling in how I wanted her to “just snap out of it,” while somehow forging my own path in life. She had reached what I then thought was rock bottom: not getting out of bed, taking endless sick days from work, not cooking or cleaning, never leaving our dilapidated apartment…signs that most people would recognize as severe depression. But I was 15. I noticed, yet felt completely powerless. It used to be us against the world. Now it was me trying to manage a household; maintain a high GPA; work 20 hours a week; study for the SATs, and somehow keep my mom’s spirits uplifted.
It didn’t work very well.
By the time I entered my freshman year of college, her version of “empty nest syndrome” took on a whole new meaning.
Our interactions gradually decreased, to the point that I often resorted to asking friends that still lived locally to stop by. When those friends moved away, this turned into welfare checks by the county. She would then return my calls, as the social worker stood awkwardly in her home (when she had a home) and passed her the phone.
The healthcare system felt like a labyrinth with no viable solutions. My mom was in an out of psychiatric wards for the next decade, which was always a temporary band-aid for a woman that was consistently in danger of self-harm.
Gradually, I became desensitized as it dawned on me that my help was not enough… but what was?
That Unexpected Call from JFK Hospital
By April of 2019, we had not spoken in about 3 years. That’s right, count ’em THREE years. My partner, Laura, and I were just returning from a trip to New York when I saw a missed call notification. It’s strange how you can just know. I turned to Laura, the color drained from my face, and said, “I don’t recognize this number, but I feel like this is my mom.”
Twenty minutes of a whirlwind of doctors later, I finally got what I needed. My mom had an ulcer that was left untreated for a prolonged period of time (read: poor, depressed, no longer gived af). Finally, it got so bad that her roommate found her collapsed on the floor and raced her to the ER. This “roommate” would later reveal herself as an unscrupulous landlord, but that’s a story for another time.
She was admitted with some initial tests that ultimately led to an endoscopy. Then all the alarm bells went off. The hospital needed my consent for her to undergo an emergency surgery, which was extremely high risk given her age and current health condtion.
I flew out the next day, which would be the start of my three-week long saga in the beautiful Inland Empire. The hot, drug-infested desert of my youth.
The second I stepped foot in the hospital, I wanted to run away. Run far, far away and just bury my head in the sand. There were endless decisions to be made: Should we continue ventilation? Should we try a fifth blood transfusion? A sixth? If she were to survive, how could we apply for Medicaid on her behalf without access to any of her personal records?
Two months later…
By the last day in ICU, I had a hard conversation with a few different (amazing) doctors that had been present throughout my mom’s care. The general consensus was that if she were eligible for a second emergency surgery, she could potentially recover. It would be an uphill battle, but she would be able to push through. Unfortunately, at the age of 71 and in poor health, that surgery was not advised. It would have been a death sentence. That left only one option: Comfort Care (aka palliative care).
While my mom was not lucid, she could hear and respond via simple gestures. I squeezed her hands, looked into her eyes, and asked what she wanted us to do.
“Did you hear what the doctors were recommending, Karen?”
No response.
“Mom, I don’t want you to be in pain anymore…but it’s your choice. You have to tell me what to do.”
No response.
I could see the terror in her eyes. You think you know fear? Look into the face of someone you love as they acknowledge their lives are coming to an end. Whether they like it or not. It’s happening.
Her hands shaking, wires jittering across the bed, she opened her mouth. We had spent weeks waiting for those words, any words. I had spent weeks telling her all of my regrets, moments of success, how she had made me into the strong woman that I am today. How grateful I was to be raised by her. That I forgave her and hoped she understood why I couldn’t do more.
“I l-l-love you.” she stuttered, tears streaming down her face.
Squeezing her hand for the last time, I pressed my body against hers just to feel it, and cradled her face in my shoulder. For all I know I was suffocating her, but I could tell that it was the closest I had ever been or ever would be to feeling the love she just expressed.
Then I had to make the call.
I put her on the morphine and watched over the next two days as her mind and body slowly degenerated. The hardest was the mind. The first night she would moan in agony and reach out to nothing — past relatives…maybe my dad? Who knew. It was scary to watch.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before they switched her out of ICU and gave her the level of medication she needed to finally reach the “comfort” they speak of in hospice care. I have never seen her in such a deep sleep, and can imagine that she was finally able to feel the release she had been wanting for years from life’s stressors.
At 8:30am on April 20th, 2019 she was no longer on this earth. Who knows where her soul went (I’m not religious) but I would imagine that she is off in another dimension, being a badass and finally getting the break she always deserved.
The weird thing? That was also the same day my dad died back in ‘96. I would like to think that somewhere out there, they are reconnecting. Strange coincidence. Otherwise…who knows.
Conclusion
Grief is one of life’s ways of reminding you that you are, in fact, not at all in control. Which is okay, as long as you can accept that what you’re experiencing is temporary. The ups and downs, the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, etc. It’s all part of the road you have to traverse, and as painful as it is, the worst possible thing you can do is to deny your emotions.
Trust me, I’ve tried drinking and other ways of blocking out my mind so those nice little pain receptors are subdued. They don’t work. You have to be present. Live it. Feel what you feel as uncomfortable as it is until eventually it does get easier.
And also, forget the people who act like the ultimate goal is to move on and forget.
There is no goal and this is not a race to the finish line! These are people we love and it would not properly honor them to quickly dismiss their existence just as a way to cope. Keep them in your thoughts.
Whatever the circumstance, hold onto those memories and lean into your grief. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. And more importantly, mourn at your own pace: only you can know what’s right for you.
