Alone With Mom
by Liza Johnson • Huntington, NY

Mom has had a major stroke that has paralyzed her swallowing reflex and she is unable to talk. I decided to spend the night with her so after dinner I went back to the hospital prepared for a long night.

As the night moved on a softness began to fill my heart. I brought some rose oil which Mom loved and when she got restless in the night I took a warm wet cloth with a few drops of rose oil and began to stroke her face and hair with it. Her eyes were closed and there was tension in her brow. As I began to stroke her forehead, the tension left and peace settled in. I did this for the longest time and I began to feel like a big cat licking it’s young. Words were spare, but I enjoyed massaging her. I washed her arms, her neck, and her hands with carefulness, soothing my sorrow and hers if she had any. I will never know. As dawn approached she turned on her side to look out the window and I too joined her as we witnessed the shapes of the mountains move slowly out of the darkness into dawn.

When I got up to take a walk, a staff member approached me and basically told me that Mom would probably die today or tomorrow. I drove back to my sister’s house and got lost several times, wrapped up in a cocoon of feelings. After several hours of rest, we returned to the hospital and spent the day there. She seemed happy to have us there. We watched a tennis match on TV and some golf which my Mom loved. Then we called our brother in California so that they could have one last “conversation.” I watched as she held the phone to listen. Her knuckles turned white from gripping the phone so hard. She smiled the whole time and then handed the phone to me. I told him how she was gripping the phone and that she hung on his every word. At this point she could not even make a sound but her gestures and the look in her eyes said everything. Oh, how she loved her boy.

After awhile, Mom wanted to get up. We all struggled to help her sit on the side of the bed. When she finally felt steady, she reached out her shaking hands, for my older sister’s hand and held it in both of hers for several minutes. Then, very slowly, ever so slowly, she bent down and kissed her hand in the most sacred way. I have never witnessed anything like this in my life. It felt like a blessing of the highest order. We were all in awe of this gesture. It seemed to come out of nowhere. It felt as though she were kissing all of our hands, showing her deep love and appreciation for all of our care and even perhaps now as I write this, she was saying goodbye. My sister had to leave the room to cry. My younger sister and I looked at each other unable to speak. All of our hearts seemed to join as one. She, our Mom, we her children each one unique yet bound by history, fate and in this moment, the sacred feminine. It was here, that the jewel of humanity appeared, giving back wisdom and strength in a moment of greatest hopelessness and pain. Here in the wellspring of love, the great goddess rose up bringing love tears out of a place of darkness and mourning, watering the flowers of our souls, leaving me to ponder…even in this condition, at the edge of her known existence, she imparted a dignity and grace that would impact our lives for years to come.

Liza Johnson is a licensed Marriage Family Therapist in private practice in Huntington, NY. This is an excerpt from her forth-coming book, Take Me Home: Re-envisioning Relationship in the Last Stage of Life. She welcomes personal stories from other care-givers for Part II of her book. Email her at LJohnson7@aol.com.