She's Gone.

This post is a late entry. I wrote it well after the published date. Time to gather my thoughts and gather my will to even write, or even think. 


As the hours went on, my mom got worse. More confused, more sick, more difficulty breathing. More everything. I must have called the nurses stations thirty times between the middle of last night and arriving to the hospital. Ariyana and I got on the plane first thing this morning and arrived in Portland an hours and change after Gary and Tiffany. 


By the time we landed in Portland, mom was heavily sedated, with central lines, and a BIPAP machine, essentially forcing her to breathe. Loads of meds kept her blood pressure to a barely functioning level. The four of us, Gary, Tiffany, Ariyana and I, made record speed from Portland to Eugene in a rental. 


We got to the hospital Intensive Care Unit. I'm pretty sure she knew we were there. I'm pretty sure I was in some sort of state of shock. I'm pretty sure this shouldn't have been happening. We communicated slightly, without real conversation. And the doctors came in and gave a 'no hope' situation. She wasn't going to make it. After some time to let the news sink in, we spent some time talking to mom. Crying and trying not to wail, trying to keep Ariyana pleasant, trying to pretend this all was a nightmare. 


They took her off the BIPAP machine and onto a non-rebreather mask and oxygen. Disconnected the leads from her chest. Without the BIPAP mask in the way, I could see the harsh yellowing all over her face. Her eyes filled with a jaundice I'd only seen in our terminal patients at the hospital. And knew that this was it. This was the last time my mom would be alive. Her breathing was labored and each breathe was forced. A respiratory therapist came in and gave her a morphine breathing treatment. A few minutes later, after saying a goodbye that I never thought I would have to say within the next twenty-years - they stopped the medication drips that were keeping her hanging by a thread. 


Three minutes give-or-take later, she was gone. Her eyes fixed, staring blankly up at me. My brother next to me. And it was over. Her passing came mere minutes of our arrival, unable to have a real conversation. The lack of closure and reality was going to take years, I knew. It was a long and miserable walk out of the hospital to the car. With the bag of my mother's personal affects in one hand, and Ariyana clinging to me in my other arm. It stuck me like a knife that my mother never got to meet her for many reasons or other. Today, was a tragedy.