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Saturday was a hard day, my mother in law's body was running on auto-pilot in survival mode at this point. She had now gone 31 days without food and almost 3 without anything more than a few ice chips and the occasional morphine I administered; she could no longer really swallow and we had to be careful she did not aspirate. Her breathing was strained, her blood pressure was up and down from 172/135 to 78/39 and her heart rate skipped from the low 40s to 138. Her eyes stayed wide open staring at a spot on the ceiling. The human body tries very hard to keep on going.
The family came again, her grand kids and a couple of the great grand kids. We continued packing things up and after dinner we left and my wife stayed another night. At about 1am she woke up, she said sleeping was hard there but she felt like something woke her so she got up to go check. Her mother had finally stopped breathing, she must have died a few minutes earlier as she was still warm to the touch. She called me and I came back over. I checked her pulse but it was pretty obvious. We called the Hospice nurse who came right over. She had to record the time of death when she arrived, 2:16am. I cut off a rose from a bouquet by her bed and put it in her hands, I tried to shut her eyes and mouth but rigor mortis had already begun. I took some pictures.
My wife called her sons, one came over with his wife to sit with us. The undertakers were busy with another call so it was 4:30 when they got there. They were both large men in dark baggy suits. If they had fedoras and sunglasses they could have been Jake and Elwood from the Blue's Brothers! After they left mom's dog was very confused, she kept looking in the bed as if saying, "Where did you go? I know you were here a few minutes ago!"
When the nurse and left we turned off the lights and went home, it was 5:15 and we got a few hours sleep. We met up with my wife's son's and their wives later Sunday morning and spent the day moving things out. We got a U-Haul and took furniture to both of the son's houses and a lot of stuff to my house. It rained off and on which made it a challenge. We had to finish up on Monday and turned in the keys.
My wife asked about doing a memorial get together at the retirement center for the people mom knew. She asked about using the conference room where they hold events. The Director said that wouldn't work as we would need a much bigger room, he suggested the large dining room. "She knew everyone here" he said. "I think all the resident will want to come out for her". That was nice to hear. Mom wasn't too social but was always friendly to everyone and she was one of the first tenants when they opened 3 years ago. We plan to do something in April when my wife's brother and his kids can come. On Monday one of the hospice nurses called and said she would like to take mom's dog. She's an old dog with health issues and none of the family felt they could take her. The nurse said she had a similar type dog and texted us later that both dogs hit it off and were doing great.... happy ending I guess.
In the end it was a long journey. We are still so exhausted. I will miss her as we became great friends over the past 18 years. Often I was the one who tried to ease the everyday tension between her and my wife when they weren't seeing eye to eye. I took her to her doctors, I was her driver and her advocate. I took her to breakfast or lunch, she loved the hot dogs at Costco. I knew she was lonely at needed someone to talk to.
This was my last picture of her. I have no problem or inner conflict with photographing the dead. The body is like a broken boat you find on the beach after a storm. It made the journey and it's passenger has moved on. For me the body is beautiful in all aspects of life from beginning to end.
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