Last Day Of Life With Only A Nurse By Your Side

Sometimes I get stuck on different parts of my mom's passing. Lately, I keep thinking about her last day of being alive. I was with her that day. It was me she spent her last day with along with the nurses and hospital staff. But, I keep getting stuck on two parts. The first part: my moms last day of her life was miserable. She was unhappy. She wasn't even happy to see me after flying in from Philly. She didn't say much that day. She didn't want to talk and I was busy trying to figure out how to proceed with her cancer treatment plan. She watched her soap opera. She slept. I fed her some watermelon and broth. I left her that evening thinking I would see her in the morning like all the times before when she was in the hospital, but that evening she passed with only the nurses by her side. They called me and said she was struggling, so I raced there but I couldn't get to her in time. She was gone. I don't know how the rest of her night went but I imagine she was miserable. So the thought of her last day, on this beautiful planet, in her 66 years of living, ended on a bad day in a hospital with no one she loved around. This thought makes me understand why someone out there once said, "live each day as if it was your last, without frenzy, without apathy and without pretence." But it's hard to do that, right? It was hard for my mom to do that on that day because she was so sick. Sick of being sick. Sick of knowing that the cancer would eventually take her life. Sick of being in a hospital. How do you find joy in a day like that? How do the people who loved her most heal with that thought in mind?

The second part I get stuck on is why didn't the universe give me any signs that something unexpected was going to happen? Why didn't I get a feeling, or why didn't my inner voice tell me to stay that evening, don't leave her. Why didn't I pick up on any cosmic signals - telling me - this would be the last day - ever - that I would get to be with my mom? Did I miss all the signs? Why didn't the sky look different that day. Why didn't the air feel like it was being sucked out of the universe. Why weren't the ravens circling over me? Why were there no signs?

I don't have the answers to these questions. I don't know why my mom's last day of her life was miserable or why I didn't see any signs. The only thing I know - at this time - is that I have to make peace with all the moments that I can't take back. I have to befriend the unknowns. These unanswered questions are now my life lessons. Her death changed my life. I am not the person I used to be. I am beginning to understand how to live. How to love. How to have faith. How to pray. How to accept the things I cannot change. How to be grateful and how to make peace with my mom's ending.

Marcus Aurelius c. 121 - 180 AD: “Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it was your last, without frenzy, without apathy and without pretense.”