One Tough Old Bird!

Mom with her favorite vanilla Dairy Queen milkshake

Last week our large extended family gathered from far and wide to say our final goodbyes to our matriarch.

We have been watching our 92-year-old mother steadily decline since we moved her out of the old farmhouse three and a half years ago. Last week, however, she took a sudden turn for the worse. Over the weekend, she stopped eating and speaking. The nurses at the assisted living community couldn’t get her out of bed. Her face took on the pale pallor of a death mask.

By last Monday, it was looking grim. The priest came to give her final blessings. Wave after wave of grandkids—our mother has 19 grandkids along with two great-great grandchildren—came to visit.

We shed tears. We said prayers together. We shared memories. My siblings and I made plans for keeping a vigil in the long, dark days ahead.  

Then, incredibly, our mother staged yet another comeback. She started accepting liquids again. The nurses got her out of bed and back into the wheelchair. She grew more alert. Her color improved.

We told ourselves that this could be a temporary rally, as so often happens in the dying process. But the comeback stuck. By the end of last week, she was eating again, talking again, taking part in activities with the other residents again.

My siblings and I were all amazed. Here we thought we were losing her, but Mom had different ideas. She is one tough old bird.

The nurses tell us that they see this a lot. Someone will appear close to death, only to suddenly bounce back. It could be that our mother was hit with an illness last weekend and we didn’t know. It’s not like she can tell us when she’s sick, after all.

What we do know is that she will continue to decline. She will have her good days and her bad days but the trendline points in the same direction. In the end, though, she will decide when she’s ready to go, and right now, she’s not ready.

One day this past week when I visited her at the facility, Mom was down in the chapel at mass. I waited for her in one of the alcoves on the second floor. When the aide brought her up in the wheelchair, Mom didn’t seem to recognize me at first.

But when I reached for her hand to hold it as I like to do, she said in her faint, broken voice: “What are you doing here?”

I told her I had come to see her, at which she gave a crooked smile. I brought her a milkshake, which she drank up. Then we sat looking out the window. It was a beautiful day. The skies had cleared after the morning rain and the air had turned cool and fall-like.

I remarked on how pretty the trees were, all dressed up in their fall foliage. Mom nodded and said, yes, they were pretty. Surprisingly, she remembered it had rained that morning. She remarked on the leaves being blown by the wind.  

That was about the extent of our conversation, such as it was. For the rest of the visit, I spoke and she listened. I showed her pictures of birds and flowers from a magazine, which she stared at without reaction. I talked about things in my world—how Rachael and the kids were doing, about a recent camping trip we made to Gettysburg—and she just nodded without comment.  

When it was time for dinner, I wheeled her to the table. She ate all of her soup (she’s always been a soup lover), a few bites of the applesauce, and most of a cup of sherbert. Then it was off to her room to get ready for bed.

I gave her a kiss and told her I was leaving, and she nodded again. As I walked away, I found myself thinking about how powerful the life force is. It runs through all living things, the same will to live, to survive, to go on.   

Life is stubborn. Life clings. Life doesn’t want to give up. Life does not go gently into that good night. This is especially so for human beings given that we are uniquely aware that we are alive and that we will one day die.

In the end, I think the precise time and place of death has as much to do with the readiness of the human spirit as it does with the deterioration of the human body. The spirit decides when it has had enough of this world and wants to move on. Then, like a leaf, it lets go.

I recall, for instance, my grandmother, Mom’s mother, who lingered for two weeks without food on her deathbed. The hospice director told us that our spirited, fun-loving grandmother was not likely to go as long as her large, loving family continued to crowd around the bed because, well, she didn’t want to miss out on anything.

So we gave her some privacy, and sure enough, she passed away when no one was there.

None of us know when Mom will decide she’s had enough, but she’s not there yet. In the meantime, we’re grateful to have a little more time with her, knowing how precious those moments are.