End of life lessons

After a rough start to the week, adjusting mother's pain medications and her seeming to sleep most of the day and refusing to eat, she had a much improved Thursday and Friday. We propped her up in bed and she was trying to talk to us. Not all of it made sense, but I could see her wonderful personality shining through the mental confusion that has fogged her mind and interrupted her speech recently. She recognized me and we chatted a bit. I was so happy about this turnaround. And yet I wondered if it's what the hospice literature calls terminal lucidity, or an end of life rally. According to what I've read, it can last minutes, hours or as long as a couple days. 

Since I get to see mother every morning/afternoon during the work week, I let my sister head over this morning since she's a teacher and seldom gets to visit with mother when she's more alert. But alas, mother slept most of the time my sister was there and wasn't really coherent. After lunch with my husband and younger daughter, I drove over and settled in for the afternoon with mother. As she neared time for her next dose of liquid morphine, she started to rouse. She even recognized me and said my name. I was trying to talk through my tears and nose blowing, telling her how sorry I was that she's in so much pain and that I love her.

Mother drifted off again, so I pulled up my church music playlist and chose a couple of old Baptist standards. Back when I was in first and second grades, mother played the piano at a small country church we attended. I can remember sitting in the front pew once a week after school while mother practiced the songs she'd be playing at the next Sunday service. As I sang along in my incredibly off-key voice this afternoon, mother seemed to be humming along to "To God Be the Glory" and "When We All Get To Heaven". As the tears rolled down my face once again, I mourned all of the things I had anticipated doing with my mother. Another college graduation. Watching her granddaughters walk down the aisle. The birth of a great grandchild. On the drive home this evening with those church song lyrics running through my head, God reminded me that even though mother will soon leave this earthly life, I'll carry her in my heart until I see her again one day when I get to heaven. What a day of rejoicing that will be!