As a child growing up, I worshiped my mother. She was my best friend. She was different from other mothers: she worked as an accountant but did not fit that mold; she had red hair that changed to blond in her mid-forties and on occasion became purple, blue, green, peach or pink with “fanciful” rinses so her hair color would match her outfits for the week; she wore spike heels, abundant jewelry, smoked Salem cigarettes, had two-drink-lunches with dad, and sipped Canadian-and-water after work until bedtime; and she was a fabulous storyteller. I would sit spellbound as she wove reality with her sense of how it should have been.

After my father died in 1978, my mother lived by herself in California. Ed and I lived on a sailboat in the Virgin Islands. With each visit, mother would say she wanted to move there to be closer, especially after Lyric was born. I'd list all the reasons why she'd be unhappy there: the mountainous terrain & learning to drive on the left would be difficult or deadly; our hectic charter life-style had us off-island much of the time and would leave her as alone as she was in L.A.; the hurricanes often included days to weeks without power; the island had very poor medical care, a consideration at her age although she'd always been very healthy.

When we moved to North Carolina in 1991, Patricia could not understand why we'd choose to live in “a redneck wasteland” with an abysmal “lack of culture.” She changed her mind after we bought Eco-cove and I took her to the Fresh Market on a fall visit. If she could eat well, she would manage. She sold her California property and moved to a small bungalow nearby. She met a gentle widower at the Catholic mission church. Paul delighted in her spontaneity and vivaciousness. Soon they were living together, though he kept his own home. Many of the women of the mission referred to her as the “flashy floozy” because of her bleached-blonde hair, exotic wardrobe, and 2” long wildly-painted, acrylic-topped fingernails (not to mention her quick take-over of the church’s most eligible bachelor). My family was happy they'd found “new love” at their age.

We built an acre pond and had them out for a picnic. Mom decided country living was quite wonderful, and she should build a house on our property. In her 70s, she began the plans for what she wanted and found a builder to put her specs into a workable design. It was to be my inheritance. It took awhile to convince Ed, as he felt her strong personality and demanding nature would be a test for our marriage. I believed her building elsewhere could lead to problems in inclement weather (if I couldn’t get to her) and that the physical closeness would bond her closer with our daughter, Lyric, who adored her. The happiest I have ever seen my mother was in the year of building that house, her pride and joy. When it was finished, she said she wouldn’t mind doing it all over again.

She and Paul had five good years living together, traveling, laughing, and loving one another. When he got ill, she realized that physically, she'd be unable to care for him. His family moved him to Colorado and he died a year later. Since then, she's had good days, especially when she and I traveled, but she has not been happy. She was never able to drive while living here due to macular degeneration, and she complains often (and bitterly) about her “lack of wheels.” In Lunch at the Piccadilly, Clyde Edgerton’s protagonist, Carl, states aunt Sarah “…once said that stopping driving was the worst thing she’d ever been through, including (1) her husband’s death, (2) her daughter’s divorce—it was a bad one—and (3) watching her dog Skippy get run over.” It has been as traumatic for my mother, and she bemoans that loss more than any other in her life. I encouraged her to go to the senior center & meet people, but she was convinced they weren’t her kind of people. She did try a singles group, but felt they were judgmental of her drinking.

Mother began to have shortness of breath about 3 years ago. For her 84th birthday, she bought herself a wheelchair and a diamond bracelet, saying she might lose her mobility, but not her sense of style. She finally quit smoking 18 months ago, too late to be effective. Her panting did not prevent her from going to her nail appointments, having her driver take her to grocery & liquor stores, ordering flamboyant clothes from catalogs, or attending weekend movies & dinners with me in Asheville. She still lived alone but when Lyric went to college, it was one less visitor. Our weekend excursions, her weekly cleaning woman, and Ed’s visits to discuss our nation’s sad political state were her life’s highlights.

In March she insisted on celebrating her “name day," St. Patrick’s Day, by cooking us a New England dinner. I was working the annual fire college, an exhausting weekend where 2,000 firemen come to train thru my college. I tried to dissuade mother from “cooking for us”, as I was too tired to help. She insisted she could do it. Instead, she caught a bacon fry pan on fire, smoked up her house, and took an EMS trip to the emergency room.

In the following months, her panting increased as she walked between the kitchen and the bedroom, until she had to sit down midway to rest. Breathing treatments didn’t help much. She lost the desire to go anywhere because she did not have the energy.

Last Thursday after work, I arrived at her house, mail in hand. Next to “her” chair, a drink sat on the table, ice melted half-way. The other recliner had been moved, and I knew it must have been repositioned by EMS to allow stretcher access. I called the hospital. She had just arrived.

A doctor met me at the door to the ER, asking for a word before I saw my mother. She explained that she knew my mother as a patient at her practice, and she appreciated mother’s uniqueness. She said mom had clearly stated upon admittance that she wanted no life-support systems, repeating it each time they had rephrased the question. Was this my understanding? I said I was her health care power of attorney, and yes, that is what she had always said if it got down to being in a vegetative state. The doctor said, “Well, make your peace. We’re giving her pure oxygen and morphine to keep her comfortable, but there is nothing more we can do. She did not respond to any of the breathing treatments in the ambulance and we can’t try to clear fluid off her lungs with her erratic breathing.” She showed me two x-rays, one from April and one taken that night. “She had about 40% lung capacity previously. I’ve never seen a mass move so quickly unless it is cancer. She doesn’t have a fever, so we don’t think it is an infection. We can’t tell what it is unless we do a scan or drain it with a needle. Neither can be done unless she improves; all we can do is make her comfortable.” With that, I was led to my mother, shrunken in her ER cot, pinpoint-iris-eyes bugging from her head which jutted forward as if she wanted to speak, yet she seemed unable to hear my words or feel my arms as they encircled her.

Ed arrived quickly. As they moved us to a more comfortable room, I asked a nurse to contact the local priest and ask for last rites. I stroked and kissed my mother’s head, reassuring her that my father and Paul were there with us and she shouldn’t be afraid. I began to sing to her, “We all come from the Mother, and to her we shall return…” when she growled and pushed out her chest as if trying to escape. I stopped singing. The priest arrived, radiating love and peace. He gave her Extreme Unction and as the oil from his thumb touched her forehead, she growled again. I wondered, “Does she know what is happening and she doesn’t want it?” We had talked about everything else to do with death, from a wake to cremation, but I’d never asked that simple question. Since she was Catholic, I had assumed it would be her wish.

A respiratory therapist gave her more medication. By the time the doctor arrived at eleven, mother’s eyes were clearing. At 3:30 am, a nurse asked if I would like a cot. Mother looked up and said, “Yes, she needs a cot!” At 6:30, after another breathing treatment, she was her old self. When Ed arrived at 8 am, he said, “I don’t know what the priest did to her, but it was a miracle.” That afternoon, they were able to draw 18 ounces of liquid off her left lung with a long needle. She said it hardly hurt at all. The night nurse told me mother had been listed as “Condition: Terminal” on her chart. The nurse couldn’t believe it could be the same person—she was so feisty!

I went home that night and slept 12 hours. At 11 the next morning, the hospital called to say that mother was checking out against doctor’s orders. Patricia said she couldn’t sleep there, missed her house and cat and TV (she couldn’t work theirs) and it was too damn cold in her room. I dropped everything and went to get her.

On the ride home, she said how beautiful it was here in North Carolina and how happy she felt. “Nothing like a brush with death to make you realize how lucky you are,” I said. She now said she'd been feeling happier lately, yet in every conversation we’d had in the previous months, she had told me she could not continue to live this way. I had resisted her demands for me to do more for her, and had continued to encourage her to hire others to come in to cook a few days a week and visit with her, which she could afford. We didn’t eat the same kinds of food, and she needed the stimulation of other people.

Though I had promised to “never put her in a nursing home,” I interpreted that as watching over her, not giving up my life for her. Her demands caused me to pull back to protect myself, building a wall around my emotions and becoming more distant. I felt guilty that she seemed to feel I was never doing enough. When I'd arrive with her mail each day, she'd always want me to come in & have a drink. After working all day, I wanted to go home, cook dinner, and spend quiet time with Ed. Giving her a day on the weekends—paying bills, cooking a nice dinner and watching a movie —was a large part of my time. She often got more time than my husband did, as the other weekend day was usually spent maintaining our property.

We spent the afternoon learning the ins-and-outs of her new oxygen machine with its 40-foot tether of plastic tubing, emergency back-up tank, and portable “e” tanks for any outings. She was happier and more cheerful than she’d been in months. I said I needed to go home for a couple of hours (20 yards down the road) and would bring up Alaska salmon (which she loves) for dinner. (She’d hardly eaten in the hospital.) When I came back, she had already set the table and was watching the news. She ate a big dinner (for her) and said she was looking forward to TV and her own bed. She slept twelve hours that night.

This morning, the hospital called. The first test results showed pneumonia. They knew she'd refuse to be readmitted, but she needed to come in for an antibiotic shot and a week’s worth of pills. I'll take her to her doctor’s appointment on Wednesday, and I’ve tried to convince her to have a nurse on duty when I have to work. She is determined she is going to be okay on her own. She said, “Aunt Lorene had pneumonia three times and lived to be 100. I’m only 86. She drank, smoked, and did just as she pleased, too. I’m a lot like her.” With determination like that, she may continue to beat the grim reaper. I hope and pray that she retains her appreciation of the time she has left, and that I can keep from rebuilding my wall. 

~ Gabrielle M. Thompson, July 2004
© 2004 Gabrielle M. Thompson

Gabrielle Thompson lives with her husband Ed and daughter Lyric in the mountains of western North Carolina at Eco-Cove, a 117-acre wildlife sanctuary and trout farm. She has a degree in Anthropology and is Coordinator of Library Services at McDowell Technical Community College. Previously she helped Ed build, sail, and charter the 75’ schooner, SATORI for 14 years in the Virgin Islands. She is a freelance writer and has written two unpublished novels. In December 2002, she had an article published in Moments of Grace Magazine, with an introduction by Neale Donald Walsch.