It defines us...

It was a Friday afternoon, I was listening to Babylon by David Gray in my car while driving back from school when the call came, she had been sick for what seemed like an eternity yet no matter how much you prepare yourself you are never ready when you receive that call. I continued to drive because news like that hits you hard, it's as though the driving was therapeutic in itself and if I stopped then the phone call would be real and not one I just imagined.

The call came from my father the person I least expected, after all, during my childhood he was the sick one, not her.

It was January of my senior year in college, 6 months before graduation, the 10th day of the quarter when I received the call – see I knew this call was coming, I had just returned from my last goodbye only 3 days prior, the week before we made the decision she would have wanted, the one she had clearly outlined in her Living Will, a decision not easy to make no matter what a little piece of paper says, we let the hospital know she was to be labeled DNR and had her taken off of the Ventilator, but knowing does not make receiving the call any easier.

What they don’t tell you is that dying in a hospital may be one of the worst places to die. Before making a life altering decision such as ‘pulling the plug’ the hospital has a family meeting, a debriefing of the patients condition, best case, worst case, best-worst case, worst-worst case, the doctor goes over what will happen in a ‘pulling the plug’ scenario, all the information you need in that situation but never ever imagine yourself receiving.

When we made the decision, it was crystal clear, there was no question what she wanted – at that point it didn’t matter what we wanted – we were all present and accounted for in that little room and we all knew she wouldn’t want to live that way, a fact she had herself told me over the phone a few weeks before and one she had uttered to my father a few days before. The doctor gave us as much time as we needed, we gathered our belongings and headed to her room, just left of the nurses station, in the ICU somewhere in Denver Colorado, to say good-bye and watch our mother die.

It took the nurses a few minutes to actually unplug the machine, pull out the ventilator and reduce her medication so she could interact with us one last time – the staff had warned us that she may go quickly, if she wakes, give everyone a chance, stay near. We did just that, prepared that moment was the last moment we would have with her, but she stayed awake, she was a fighter. With a morphine drip and a promise she would not suffer, they moved her out of the ICU into a regular room at the hospital but somewhere in the move the message DNR was lost – see the funny thing about hospitals is that they are in the business of saving lives not letting ones who’ve run their course just go.

Over the next few days, I said good-bye to my mother over 100 times fearing each one was the last, only to have to tell her upon waking again, where she was, what was happening and why we were all there – having to tell your mother she is dying once is heart wrenching but having to tell her numerous times is like ripping your heart out with your bare hands and running over it with a Semi truck not to mention completely exhausting.

After 5 days of living, breathing and eating hospital my father suggested to all of us kids that it was time to go back to our lives – my oldest brother and sister had a wife, a husband and kids who needed them while my brother Todd and I only had school to return to, not that we couldn’t have stayed but in all fairness we made a collective decision to leave as siblings and let our father have the remainder of her time.

That was the last time I ever saw my mother alive – it was January 9, 2001 she died on January 12, 2001.

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It is not that I remember my mother by her death or even because of it – her death was one of the defining moments of my life and it has shaped who I am today.