It’s Been One Year

Today is the first anniversary of my mom’s passing. I still remember her screaming “Hallelujah” over and over again before she had her last seizure—which was the day before she officially passed. I honestly believe she left us at that moment. However, we waited for her to recover as she had done before, but she never did. She was in a coma.

I mean, we knew she was passing. We weren’t naive. For months her appetite had been slowly decreasing. Her blood levels were steadily declining. Almost every other week she was getting a transfusion. Her stage 4 wound wasn’t healing and she had become septic…again…as she had become every couple of weeks. Yes, we knew she was dying but we just wanted her to look at us one more time. We kept trying to wake her up by singing her favorite songs, talking to her about her favorite shows and meals, washing her face, everything. But nothing worked. No eye movement. No sign of irritation whenever they came in to change the dressing on her wound. Nothing. The only signs of life were the numbers on the monitor that were gradually dropping.

On the morning of her passing, the doctor told us it was time for us to make the final decision. The oxygen and blood pressure medicine were the only things keeping her alive for us. Basically, she was already gone. They had tried taking her off several times before and her oxygen and blood pressure levels plummeted. Because she was a DNR, they wanted to make sure we were ready for what was to come before disconnecting everything.

After they removed the oxygen and IVs, we waited for something dramatic to happen. Thought she would immediately go into cardiac arrest. According to several nurses, the end wasn’t always pleasant. But nothing happened. The nurses asked if we wanted them to give her some pain medicine and we declined. She had been in severe pain for years and that was the first time we had seen her at complete peace. They told us to let them know if she became uncomfortable or began to moan and they would give her something. Again, nothing happened. She just appeared to be asleep. Which is how she said she wanted to die. She told us she had prayed and asked God to let her die in her sleep. And she did.

From around 2 PM until a little after 9 PM, we sat with her as her numbers slowly decreased. We took turns holding her hands and rubbing her forehead until they became cold and grayish. We didn’t immediately call the nurse in after we knew she was gone. We just sat there in silence.

Our momma…

Dorothy Ree, we miss you!

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We have all been dreading this day. Been grieving for a whole year. Some days have been better than others. For me, last night was really rough. The tears just kept flowing, as they are now. I’m not bawling but the tears just seem to be flowing from nowhere.

Think I will end here. I may or may not share a second post today, or I might share several. I’m just going to go with the flow.

Thanks for allowing me to share.♥️

Love you,

Shaun