My mother had stopped eating about three weeks earlier. On the day she died, I took my time because I knew. I wanted to be mentally prepared. I had taken a vacation for two weeks, and I felt she knew. She had Alzheimer's, but she and I didn't have to talk. I could see in her eyes every word. When I arrived, my sister left for lunch.
My mother's death rattle grew more coarse and guttural. The nurse said that she couldn't swallow by this time, and there was no way that she could take in all the unique things I had brought her to make her want to stay alive: Wine, chocolate, cheese, and other things. But my mother told my sister three weeks before that she was done. She wanted out. I asked the nurse as my mother was having an even harder time: "Is this the time?" I said it right before my mother, who didn't try to say anything, just looked at me. I was insensitive; I knew I was wrong as I said it.
The nurse said that my mother could hear everything I said. Of course, she could. My mother gave me everything. I didn't know that until I yelled at her one time in front of my apartment, where she had been sitting on a bench and was robbed by a homeless man. It broke her heart. I was ashamed. She didn't say anything. She just took it in.
Suppose you have read Richard Wright's description of Bigger Thomas in the room with his mother as he yells at her because she lost her job as a cleaning lady to a rich white man. Bigger Thomas cries because he cannot protect her as big as he was. He was powerless. But he loved her too. He knew she didn't deserve it.
My mother raised my sister and me from when my father died. She had given up her job to be his secretary. She was a runway model and commercial artist before she met him. She was great at her work. She gave it all up when she raised us as a stay-at-home mom. Her life after that was a state of poverty.
As a server, I have always been stressed and not well enough financially to take care of her. I never understood that. I thought that she was OK. But she wasn't. The point, rather than drag this out, is that she knew, and I knew. That's what breaks my heart. I couldn't take care of her and take care of myself. I tried in my later years, but she would fall in the shower and pass out. I couldn't lift her, and I would call the ambulance. She would start fires or leave something on the stove, walk off, and forget where she was.
At a point, in this case, of impoverished monotony, you get tired. There is never a way out. There is no break, and you know.
