Last Day of a Remarkable Life
Seven Years Ago Tonight, We Got the Call
“It Won’t Be Long, Now”
It was the day before Labor Day, seven years ago, that my brother Jim called to let us know that Mom had taken a turn for the worse. We had all been taking turns staying with her down in South Carolina that summer, as she was, in her own words, “On the downhill slide”.
I’d spent most of the month of July with her, into the first week of August, when Jim and his wife Dorothy had relieved me, and taken turns being with her the rest of that month. Kathy and I had just been down there the weekend before labor day weekend, visiting Mom and Dorothy after having celebrated Kathy’s 50th birthday down in Charleston earlier that week. At dinner the one night, Mom had leaned over to tell me, “It won’t be long now, Pete.” She said it with a gleam in her eye. She was ready.
A Long Life, Always Full of Surprises
She’d lived 88 years, far exceeding all expectations, outliving Dad by 16 years, when everyone was certain he’d live much longer than her. We’d managed to keep her in her Independent Living 2-bedroom apartment by making sure one of us was always there with her, right up to that last weekend. It was what she really wanted, though she never said so. But, we knew her.
Just ten days before the end, after having been really under the weather for a couple days, Mom had come out of her bedroom and declared, “Let’s go out to eat!” She was always so full of surprises like that! We’d gone out to her favorite little Italian joint, Landolfi’s, run by a family from New Jersey, where she’d lived for 28 years before moving to Pawley’s Island.
The Best Three Hours Ever
She surprised us again, coming out of Landolfi’s after a wonderful lunch, when she said, “Let’s go to the beach!” We did, and spent a glorious 3 hours at the place she loved most to be. For those 3 hours, she was not dying — she was really living, beaming in all her glory. Those were just about the best 3 hours of my life, being there with Mom, my wife, and my sister-in-law, Dorothy. That day will remain forever frozen in a lovely little joy bubble of time.
But, the call from Jim signaled that Mom was right — it had only been 8 days since that day on the beach. Mom had gotten to the point where Dorothy wouldn’t be able to handle her in her apartment, so she had to be moved to the hospice house that day, and was pretty much out of it.
Raining — Outside and Inside My Car
I wrapped a few things up here in Virginia, got in my car first thing Labor Day morning, and started driving south. I so hoped I would get there before she was gone. I don’t remember stopping at all on that 8 ½ hour drive, though I know I had to have stopped once for gas, and I’m sure a couple more times for bathroom breaks.
There was very little traffic on the road — unusual for Labor Day. It was raining, off and on, all day, both outside the car and on the inside. I just couldn’t help it, the tears would come flooding out as I drove and thought of my life with Mom.
I knew I wouldn’t even be alive but for her, and I don’t mean her giving birth to me. She had been able to show me there was a way out of the hell I found myself in at the age of 22, because she had once been in that same hell, and had found her way out at age 40. Anyone who knew me then, knew there was no way I’d have made it to 30, much less 40. I was washed up at 22. But she’d been there.
The Peace Room
When I got to the Hospice Home that evening, they showed me to her room there. There was a plaque right outside the room — it was dedicated to a man named Hamilton Peace, the grandfather of the only person Mom knew when she first moved down there 12 years earlier. It seemed so appropriate!
At first, I was afraid I was too late. I had walked into my father-in-law’s nursing home room 10 years before, and had just missed him before he’d died. The way mom’s head was back, and her mouth open and cheeks sunken, a chill went up my spine, until I heard her snore. ‘Oh good, she’s still alive’.
A hospice nurse came in, and said, “It’s time for her meds, but we don’t have to wake her. Do you want me to leave them with you, and you can give them to her when she wakes up?” I said sure. I was just so relieved she was still alive. I really wanted to be there with her.
Communicating Over Ice Chips
After a while, she did awaken, but I wasn’t sure if she recognized me. She was already well on her way to somewhere else. She could no longer talk. She was trying to say something to me, repeatedly putting her fingers to her lips.
I was struggling to understand, then I remembered — when Dad was dying, he liked to eat ice chips. I asked the nurse for some ice chips, and Mom and I communicated for the next couple of hours over ice chips. Still not quite sure if she knew it was me, I just talked to her as if she did.
You Do Realize I Am Dying, Right?
At one point, I half-jokingly said, “Hey, Mom, I still have the beach chairs in my trunk, if you feel up to another trip to the beach in the morning.” That’s when I knew she knew it was me. She gave me this look that said, “Are you nuts?!? You do realize I am dying, here, right?”
She kept doing something with her hands, putting them together, looking at me than looking at them, and in a minute I figured out what I thought she was trying to say.
Mom used to have a little “Praying Hands” statuette on top of her dresser, right beside her “Prayer of St. Frances” plaque. I put my hands together and said the prayer of St. Frances — always one of her, and of my, favorites. After that, she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
The nurse suggested I could stay the night with her, as the chair in the corner opened out to be kind of a bed. I did that, and was lulled to sleep by Mom’s loud, rhythmic snoring.
I Held Her Hands
In the morning of the 4th, I awoke, and she was still snoring away, sounding much more labored with each breath. There was a shower in the room, and I was getting ready to run out to my car for my shower kit, when something told me to stay, and to go hold Mom’s hands. She didn’t wake up, but I held her hands for the next 20 minutes or so.
Then, after one breath, the next one never followed. I waited about a minute or two, then I called the nurse’s station and said, “I think she’s gone now.” It apparently caught them off-guard, as the nurse came in and confirmed that she’d died, then was very apologetic. “I’m so sorry — we didn’t think she was that close to the end.” I just said, “It’s exactly what she wanted — she wanted it to go quickly when it went, and it did. And I got to be here with her.”
I spent the next 10 minutes alone with Mom, though I knew she was no longer there. I had felt the very real sensation of her spirit leaving her body when she’d stopped breathing. I was really just trying to pull myself together for the calls. I had six siblings to call, who were literally all over the world, and then arrangements to begin making. Those 10 minutes alone with Mom, in that room dedicated to Hamilton Peace, gave me the peace I needed to make those calls.
After all the calls, I spent that day with my sister-in-law, Dorothy, making the arrangements and doing what needed to be done while my brothers Chris and Jim, and wife and son made their ways down to South Carolina.
Honor of a Lifetime
I’ve never felt more honored, in my life, than I felt to have been able to spend the last 11 hours of this truly remarkable woman’s life with her, and to be able to begin making the arrangements for her services. There would be three services in all (for the woman who didn’t want any services), one in South Carolina, and two in Virginia, where she would ultimately join Dad in his columburium in Arlington National Cemetery.
