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Wahkiddo

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Everything posted by Wahkiddo

  1. On September 19th, 2009, my mother, Alice Mae, was working in her garden when a blood vessel burst in her brain. She was born with this thing, called an AVM, and she had no symptoms. She didn't know it was there, no one did. She survived emergency brain surgery but had to recover from the stroke that the AVM caused her to have when it burst. She survived until October 29th, 2009, when bilateral pneumonia took her life. Her last days were at Hospice of the Valley at Phoenix Baptist Hospital. She was surrounded with love by her family and friends and was treated with tremendous dignity, comfort, love and respect by the Hospice doctors, nurses and staff; for which my sister and myself will always be grateful. Today would have been her 77th birthday and even at just over 4 months I still have thoughts of "how can this be real?" She was so healthy and vital and strong... and would not have had a stroke for any other reason. As a former nurse, she knew what she was facing after the brain surgery and there was hope for recovery up until the last week when the pneumonia took over, eventually causing sepsis and her death. My sister and I will always be grateful that years ago my mother had spoken with us about living wills and what she wanted. Having previously lost our father and our brother to long years of suffering and illness, we knew and respected our mother's wishes at the end. She was at peace. In my heart, I am not at peace... I am so sad. And recently my anger has returned. It's different in someways from the anger I felt just after she died. But what I am angry about is mostly the same. I am angry that my mother had this timebomb in her brain, which took away her independent life, as she knew it, on Sept. 19th. I am angry that she developed the bilateral pneumonia and eventually sepsis; which caused her death. And today, I am angry that she doesn't get to turn 77. My anger now doesn't have the steam behind it that it did before, but it is here again, just here... present in my heart. My sister and I spoke earlier this week about how we both needed to just get through today. Like the recent holidays, which were awful and sad and yet somehow we got through them. Because I am my mother's daughter I will get through today. I can do that for her. I miss her every day. I feel like there is no sweetness or joy in my life and like there is a "limiter" on my emotions, which is probably the only thing that keeps me from being a puddle on the floor all the time. This was a sudden and (until we entered hospice for the last few days) unexpected death. Maybe that's why it is still, at times, just completely unreal to me that she is dead. I miss my mother, I miss my friend, I miss the love and respect that we had for each other... and that I know I will never have, at least not in that way, ever again. This is the first time I have posted in such a forum. I needed to write this "out loud." I also needed to put her birthday on the calendar here. I have been reading the posts in this forum for about a month, but I wasn't ready for this until today. I am grateful to all of you that have posted here... you have helped me in my sorrow.
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