Mama Trauma

In the fall of 2019, we moved back in with my mom. My late husband, John and I moved in for mutual support. His health had taken a turn for the worse and my mom kept beating around the bush about wanting us there. Not that she would ever come right out and say “I need help”.

We lived there from January 2019 through June, during which time I thought I would either explode or implode. My mom was a wonderful, caring, creative and loving person. And she was hyper vigilant. About everything. I felt like I was living under a microscope. Too many suggestions every day about how to do things I’d been doing for 50 years. Even my late husband John, who was almost a saint with my mom, occasionally would “put her in her place” after yet another suggestion was made.

We made our escape to the Cambridge area where I was going to work with a nonprofit improv theater group in various capacities. John was going to trade some hours for part of our rent in a shared housing situation we had found. Only two months after arriving, both John’s health and my mom’s took a sharp decline. She had been diagnosed with colon cancer in April. She had a successful surgery and then choose to undergo, against the wishes of most of her family including my niece who is an RN, a round of aggressive chemo. My mom was 89 at the time. The surgery had successfully remove the tumor and the scans looked clean. We were all afraid the chemo would kill her. It did. October 14, 2019.

This brings me to the traumatic part of this journey with my mom. When she was initially diagnosed she was devastated. Her mom had died of colon cancer. We all were her cheer leaders! Reminding her that many advances had been made since her mom’s experience. When her surgery went well, we all wanted her to relax into her life and enjoy the years ahead. But being hyper vigilant meant she couldn’t rest thinking that there was one cancer cell left in her body. “What if” loomed large for her and she opted for the chemo.

By the time I came back from the two months in Cambridge, she was getting ready to start round two. She was in a weakened state. She was terrified of dying. She was depressed. We all wanted her to stop the chemo as it was clear that it was debilitating for her. Just a few weeks after I returned her new oncologist said “enough”. And told her there was nothing more that could be done for her.

For some background, I was also juggling my late husband’s terminal disease; advanced metastatic prostate cancer. And I found myself furious with my mom for her reaction to her situation. She had 20 more years of wonderful life than John was going to have. Why couldn’t she just accept that at almost 90 she was going to die? I cheered her on to just enjoy each moment she had left. I had no tolerance for her depression and anger.

The fact that I didn’t have it in me to grieve with her still haunts me. “Oh mama, I am so very sad that your life will soon be over. I too thought you would live to be 100! And I will miss you more than I can even imagine”…is what I wished I had said to her. Oh that I had been able to be more gentle, more tender, more empathetic. Tears brimming even now as I write this.

Those last six weeks of her life is where the real Mama Trauma of this story lies. As wonderful as Hospice is, it is no small task to care for a loved one, let alone your mother, in the last weeks of life. Especially when pain management is key. I could see the effect the cocktail of opioids and other pain-killers were having. A woman I would describe as a “force of nature”, 5 feet tall, large and in charge, was unable to remember how to call her best friend whom she had called at 8:00 am everyday for 30 years. I didn’t want to over medicate her. But staying ahead of the pain curve is important. And sometimes I didn’t. Those nights of her screaming out for me, writhing and crying while I am on the phone with Hospice asking what do I do now? The pain meds taking their sweet time to kick in. Those were the times that now, almost 4 years later feel the most traumatic.

Oh my dear sweet mama, we had our struggles and challenges. I have been able to see more clearly the “whys” of them these past 2 1/2 years. And I forgive us both for not quite finding the way to untangle it all while you were still alive. All I can say now is “I miss you more than I could have imagined and I wish you had lived to be 100!”