Don't Wait Until Mother's Day

My mom, Joyce Wiertelak,
about age 3

I've gotten some messages from readers who were wondering what happened to Rhonda.  Unfortunately, she had to take a "bereavement withdrawal," I guess you'd call it, for the semester.  She'll be back next month, taking English 101 over the summer.  Her withdrawal from the course may be a fictional event, but it springs from something that happened to me (her creator) in real life.

On April 8, my mother died.  Not long after Rhonda's last post (on 3/10/14), Mom went into the hospital because of an infection, and over the next 3 weeks, she had innumerable tests, scans, x-rays, etc., of every part of her body as they tried to figure out what was causing the pain she had been experiencing.  The upshot of all this was that while she was finally getting medication for the pain (and the infection, which did clear up), they discovered that she had cancer of the spine.  The prognosis was as bad as possible:  4 weeks (or 6 months, if she were to continue her kidney dialysis).  She chose to forgo the dialysis-- she hated it -- and so she was put under hospice care and we brought her home. 

I cannot say enough good things about the hospice and the help they gave us, so I won't try, but looking back on it now, a month later, I find that I am very glad that we went that route.  You might think that doing all the things that have to be done for a person in that situation would be . . . well, pick your adjective-- disgusting, gross, whatever, but when it's someone you love, that aspect of it doesn't even come into play.  You're just happy you can do something to make her more comfortable.  Really, it was a privilege to take care of her and help her during this time; we're all agreed on that.  From the moment of the diagnosis, our primary concern was that Mom would get whatever she wanted (obviously, she would also get whatever she needed, too), and my four siblings and I did everything to make that happen.  Unfortunately, her condition worsened so rapidly that there wasn't time to do all the things she wanted to do.

So, on Mother's Day this year, the family will gather the way we always did.  In the hospital, she told me she wanted the chilled cucumber soup I make every summer.  When she came home, I bought the cucumbers, but the next day she wasn't up to eating much, and it just went downhill from there.  We'll be having the soup on Sunday, along with some of her other favorites, and I know I'm still going to feel guilty that I didn't make it while she could enjoy it, but I also know that she would tell me it was not my fault and that I shouldn't feel badly about it.

What I want to say right now is this:  don't wait to make the cucumber soup.  Don't wait for Mother's Day.  Do it now.

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• Dialysis Machine For Infants For The First Time (medindia.net)
• For Mother's Day: A Rural Story of a Mother's Love (barefootmeds.wordpress.com)