I had a few visits with mom and said my goodbyes.
There will be plenty of time to reflect on her life and the gifts she gave her children, but for now, we wait. When I arrived, she was in a wheelchair. When I left three days later, she was in bed nearing the end.
It was a heartbreaking scene as she began vocalizing all the pain and confusion and memories and whatever else was flowing through her mind. The sounds echoed up and down the hall – a combination of screams and moans and howls and cries. You could make out a few words here and there, but the clearest was, “Help me….”
The anguish of a soul not ready to go home, perhaps fearful of what awaits or simply a person in pain, only made worse by the inability to articulate.
Finally, the staff got its act together enough to give her medicine and my sisters and I ducked out before the younger sibling stormed the castle, enraged by my speaking truth to her supposed power.
Mom is on morphine now, if only to keep the screaming to a minimum and to take advantage of modern medicine’s gift to the final journey: a peaceful transition.
Advent is the season of waiting. So as we wait for the coming of the Christ child, we also pray for another child of God to head home and rest in peace.