Disclaimer: this is written very sloppily, this is more for myself organizing my own thoughts and very journalistic writing
It was February 28th, I had just finished my last class for the day and I decided to call you as I walked to my car. You didn’t answer, which had become a normality due to you sleeping a lot during the days or being kind of out of it. But shortly later you texted me and told me you and dad were headed to your appointments and you’ll call me back when you’re home. Finally later after dinner you called and this was our last phone call. You told me you went to your very last oncology appointment, they told you they had done everything they could do and they basically told you goodbye. You told me you and dad went to the local funeral home in Keller and started to make arrangements. You asked me if I thought you should be buried or cremated. You told me how hard of a day it was for you and that you wanted to take some of the burden off of us and start planning the funeral stuff now so we wouldn’t have to later in a couple of months or so. I offered to make the slideshow of photos for the funeral for you because I had made my own video for graduation in high school. We talked for probably an hour and just cried and talked about death. I will never forget that phone call because it was the hardest one in my whole life. We talked about how I would be home next week for spring break and we could hang out the whole time - me, you, and Bentley.
Coincidentally, that was also the last time we ever spoke on the phone. That was the last day you ever sent me a text. That was the last time we actually had a conversation with you being coherent.
As my family and I know, my mom never accepted the fact she was terminally ill. She spoke of high hopes, miracles, and fighting. She was in complete denial until about February. Personally, I believe she fully accepted the fact that her time was coming to an end on February 28th and I believe that was the day she started to die.
A week later I made it home to Texas. My dad and Bentley greeted me in the driveway and I was informed my mom didn’t really have a good day and she was pretty out of it. I came home and sat in the living room with my parents and we talked as my mom just laid there and tried to follow along, she wasn’t really there. For the next few days she slept all day and would only wake up around dinner time and we would try to get her to eat. This is where all of my days start to run together and I can’t remember much of an organized timeline. All I know is her last meal was Torchy’s Tacos and we sat around the dining room table and ate. One night she laid on the foot of my bed with Bentley and just laid there. I took a photo of them because I knew this might be one of the last times the three of us laid in bed together - and it was.
After that my mom started to enter her “coma-like” state as I like to call it. She was never coherent, always asleep until her meds wore off and my dad would have to give her more or her medicine and she would go back to sleep. I would hear my mom screaming from pain and crying. It broke my heart to see her in so much pain. I would just lay in bed and cry and cry. I didn’t sleep much that week.
The hospice people said this was probably it and they didn’t know how much time she had left. My sister flew in town from Colorado to be home and right after she did the hospice people moved my mom to a hospital bed in the living room to make her more comfortable. After that she never got up again, never talked, never spoke, nothing. Her eyes would sometimes open but her pupils weren’t responsive to light so they told us the hearing is the last thing to go. Cat laid there for I don’t know how many days and everyday I thought it would be the last. Every night before I went to bed I told her goodbye thinking that was the last time. But as everyone knows my mom was a fighter, she was stubborn, and she did not want to die. So we just had to wait until she decided she was ready.
March 19th, 2019. The last day. I was standing in my parents room going through photos when my sister walked in and said “this is it, come on”. At this point we were all ready for my mom to pass on, we knew how much pain she was in and we wanted her to let go and be free from suffering. Me, my dad, Chandler, and Bailey gathered around my mom in the hospital bed. I held her hand. The hospice nurse told us her breathing patterned had changed and usually that is a sign, she told us the last breath is usually a big gasp like one and then that will be it. We stood around Cat and my dad and sister spoke to her, told her we loved her. Then she took that last big breath and her heart beat stopped. We all just stood there staring at her with tears silently falling down our faces until the nurse said “3:11pm is the time of death”. I helped my dad and Bailey close her eyes and I kissed her forehead. She was gone.
Now we had to wait for the morgue people to come pick her up which was such a strange concept to just have your mom laying lifeless in your living room. I can remember just sitting in there staring at her and thinking this is the last time I will ever see her in the flesh. She looked so peaceful, I wondered if it was like the movies and her spirit floated around us as we were gathered around her and she passed on. I can remember picking Bentley up and letting him look at her and smell her because I wanted him to understand what was happening. I never sobbed, I never broke down. Tears would just silently fall and that was all. Finally the morgue people got there and moved her on the stretcher. I remember thinking wow I hope nobody drives by in the neighborhood while they are putting her in their car. They got my mom loaded up and my dad asked them not to cover her face with the sheet until they got outside. This was it. These was the last time I will ever see my mom. I just stared at them as they rolled her away with tears in my eyes. Before they opened the front door they covered her up and that was it, she was actually gone.
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