It\u2019s been 7 months since my mother\u2019s passing on September 19, 2010. At 94, she\u2019d been relatively healthy and able-bodied (save for Dementia and moderate-severe hearing and vision loss), taking hardly any meds and using only a four-pronged cane to get around. As she\u2019d begun to fall more frequently, we tried in vain to get her to use her walker (we\u2019d given up on her getting a hearing aid long before).<\/p>\n
She had fallen again 6 days prior to her death; it was a Monday. The staff at her Assisted Living got her to the ER, where my sister met her. Nothing broken but she got banged up; plus, they discovered some pneumonia, most likely because we started having her taken around in her wheelchair a couple of weeks prior \u2013 she even warned us herself: \u201cThen I\u2019ll never get any exercise!\u201d. So she was put on antibiotics and returned to her apartment.<\/p>\n
I visited her that night. We talked about random things. And \u2013 thank the Goddess – as she stood there saying goodbye, she spoke what turned out to be her last cogent words to me that will forever ring golden in my heart and soul: \u201cThank you for being my friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next time I saw her was on Wednesday night, when my sister and I struggled to get her into the car to go to the ER, as the AL staff was unable to handle her: She\u2019d become combative, refusing to eat or drink or take any of her meds; she seemed to be checking out on all fronts. They kept her overnight, and my sister returned early the next morning.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t able to get to the hospital until 1:30 Friday morning, but was thrilled to be there; in the throes of a beyond-ugly break-up, the timing of her demise had saved me from having to be alone with my ex-partner for an extended trip, thereby enabling me to avoid having to experience even more hell than I was already going through. My sister and I were able to get her into a wonderful Hospice late Friday afternoon, where she died Sunday evening as we chanted, read the Kaddish and excerpts from The Tibetan Book of the Dead, and held a holy and loving space for her from which she could depart this plane.<\/p>\n
The other blessing of my mother\u2019s timing was that her life insurance policy (that I\u2019d previously thought of as fairly meager) was a perfect amount that arrived promptly enough to enable me to move into my next home with relative ease.<\/p>\n
My little Mama. I completely believe that her spirit was protecting me, looking out for me, even while her dying body-mind was usurped by Dementia. She wasn\u2019t able to do as much as I know she wanted to for me in her final months, but by the grace of the gods, she pulled some strings and helped me get through hell and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been 7 months since my mother\u2019s passing on September 19, 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[251,216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-essays","category-kaddish-in-two-part-harmony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2994"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2996,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994\/revisions\/2996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beitmalkhut.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}