Accompanied by Grief: Anniversary

I loved having Mom cook in my kitchen

 December 23, 2022. Two  years ago, late Wednesday morning, the sun was shining as we siblings plus Quinn, Ethan and Tammy gathered around Mom's hospice bed to witness her taking her last breath. 

Saturday we learned her strokes had left her with necrotic bowel, and she wouldn't survive the surgery that would leave her with an ostomy bag. We agreed to send her to the Defiance Hospice facility. I started out from Iowa at 3:00 am so I could for sure be there when she arrived. 

COVID restrictions meant only Ron and I could be in the room as she was wheeled in. I remember her seeing me and squeaking, "Diane!" and then "Ron!" She had been alone in the Toledo hospital for over two weeks, as the pandemic's cruelty wouldn't let us be with her. 

Mo and Nathan were married a week after she was hospitalized, and when I called to tell her we would only be having 15 people, she said, "Well, at least I can come, right!?" I so wanted to send her photos of the wedding but she didn't have her phone or IPad and we could barely get hospital staff on the phone as it was, I didn't ask this of them yet. 

I slept at the Hospice facility overnight with her. The second night it was clear she was struggling through the morphine. I sat beside her bed and read scripture to her. I remember reading Psalm 25 because my mentee and I were memorizing it. And, since it was so close to Christmas, I read Luke 2. Before we could open presents, as long as I can remember, Mom had Luke 2 read. Sometimes she read it, sometimes a hapless grandchild got roped into it. But reading it beside her deathbed, it sounded different. She was soon going off to see that great company of the heavenly host for herself.