Life...Interrupted

As I was working on the prior post, I noticed a change in Mom's breathing.  It happened so quickly, and then it was also slow motion.  I'll save you the description except to say, it's so much different when it's someone you love struggling during those last breaths.  Your chest hurts because you want to breathe for them and your throat constricts because you're feeling their lack of air.  And all of the sudden...you can hear the air escape in a long fluid push and then silence.  I put my hand on her chest  and her heart wasn't struggling like it used to.  I shook her.."Mom, mom wake up".  But she didn't.  I knew but all the thoughts race through your head. A million thoughts race through your head and you struggle to grab onto just one. The one I finally grabbed was, call a nurse. So I did.

The nurse called the doctor, and as I waited for them to call the time of death, I called the Man. I told him Mom was gone and I apologized that I didn't call him sooner so he could be with her. But truthfully, there just wasn't time. I'm not sure she wanted to die with just me with her, but she did know that I would take care of her. The doctor called the time of death as 12:30 a.m., but she really did leave at Midnight.

While I was sitting with her, waiting, every so often she would expel air, and I would think that I was wrong and that she was still alive...even though I knew she wasn't.  The Man arrived and we sat with her till about 2 a.m. Signed papers, gathered her belongings, gave a final kiss and left. Even now I think it is a quiet exit for a woman that lived such a large life.