Lessons From My Mom

You may wonder where I have "been." Or you may not read my writing, and haven't seen a profound change. It's all good.
I have been in the last year or so, maybe longer really, in days where I pulled into myself to take on the end of the life of my mother.  It was my primary focus. And many things demanded - or I wanted- or needed-but, this was where I've been.

It required me to focus ONLY on that in some strange inexplicable way, on the emotional and personal plane, or as much as I could, and I do not mean in the sense of doing a ton for her-more it was the heaviness of accepting something I never wanted to come to be, of trying to just be here, now. To shed things. To bear it. I couldn't give the supports and writing and the openness to the world I love now at all.
I could not defend myself when I needed to at work or attend to that except in trying to be there for my job for the kids the best I could. I could not be in "the world" so much.
I was pulling into myself, and into my kids as I could, and just recalling the impossibly hard years as her mom lived vegetative-that would flash for me as maybe what was coming- as I worried I was going into that phase here with mom. I know the marathon that is- times and events when I was about 20 to 25-when I took kinda my life to face this other most incredible family woman's end of life.
Which was super hard. (And very crushing then in such poverty and lack of resources, mom lost her house to this and everything.)
Just learning, processing this time, and that time, and trying to hear Mom when she told me something- and because she was deaf too- then with others be her interpreter, interpret her,  and re-interpret to her. I annoyed Jack everytime my voice was so loud- I did that and I don't know why he didn't see that as my work-just what I was doing. She did want me sitting here. She did need to know I was right here-not because she'd ask for anything at all quite the opposite- but just to be with her. This is odd to read and maybe unnecessary to tell.

In five years I repeated at least ten times what I said to her-each and everything, so I felt I was always talking loud, and trying to say whatever it was another way, but she could depend on me mostly to make communication possible. I felt that was my role-a conduit- and answered thousands of questions she needed/loved to ask, and sat with her, and tried to have patience, calm, and when I inevitably epically failed- the sense to know that tomorrow was a new day. I needed to give support I'm sure to many, to write, send a gift, go see people, gosh tell you I am fading into this,  but I just needed to take care of Mom-or to try to.

August 23rd at around 1 PM in Community Memorial in Ventura, CA- room 420- my mother Jean Frances Lucas McIntosh had a massive coronary, took a bunch of increasingly deep and scary breaths and a huge lunging few and died. I was there, I put my hand and stopped the caring people there from all they do to shock and pump and machine a heart -  we had DNR (which you must understand is important to lessen suffering), and I put my hand between the compression they might have done (she was gone)  in deep calm and care and helped Mom to pass while watching this wonderful group of people care deeply and then she died.
I tried to say to them what you should- so they would not carry this as hard.  I have nothing but praise for the hospital during this time. She had a lovely roommate and I had the opportunity to meet her, her family, and to care for both ladies as I would want to be-and both helped me through this in different ways to understand WHAT Matters. I know I was there, and  it was a week with care and love.

Mom did not have pain, I suspect she wanted to save me from bringing her home-we were doing that right at that time- and her death was kind of a shock in the sense that she'd started recovery from infection, her lungs were better. But she struggled since March with pneumonia and it weakened her. While she'd lost some function mentally in most ways she was still herself. I am deeply thankful for that.

So, I wanted to share about my Mom. Lessons From Jean. Only a very few quick thoughts to help me pass this first night alone.

1) Do not waste.

I never saw my mom waste. Sophia likes to say she is a dumpster diver. She had a philosophy of saving- -we would save the earth that way.
I'm sure children of the depression grew up to understand this. I do not think I ever threw away something I didn't find later in the garage. In a tiny bag in the drawer, somewhere.  Or in her room. But the thing I take from that is this-it's lighter, it means less suffering, it helps us all to have enough.

2) Enjoy your food

Mom was tiny but all my family can tell you she loved her food. She loved the experience of having it. She loved avocados and shrimp, she loved taking time to eat. Cookbooks, recipes, sharing this way.  She was not a talker then-while eating. Mom  liked flavor.
She thought the hospital food this week was great.


3) Care for the children

And she cared about her grandkids and my class.
She didn't fully understand why many in my school life didn't see me as talented or insightful or caring of kids to actually teach them as she thought they might-but she tried very hard to see my life with the students and up until the deafness drown her hearing- she wanted to know about my classes. She cared deeply about them. She valued their learning. She felt that we give to the next generation.
She loved art-she wanted kids to have it.

4) Follow the news

I know she asked me today, what's going on in the news- and on the homefront news. I was able to make her laugh with a funny story she visualized about my son leaving the back door open two days ago and my discovering it, to try to send out my cat to being lost forever- and the cat told on him-he wasn't falling for THAT. She loved that. That he didn't run and he told. She followed every news event completely. Her room was lined, is lined, with her research into every conspiracy and thought ever of some awful  murder or event in justice of civil rights-except by and large I think she got it. I think she wasn't completely lost in her tracking and internal investigations.  She did not understand that there are many who do not know who Jacques Pepin is, or how the oil industry works, who don't care,  or few that have backlogs of literally hundred thousand resources on these things we know are there-collapse of economy, this, that. She did. She never lost that. She felt the news industry had gone to h but was the most important check and balance we have.


5) Ask questions

I never saw anyone ask as much. In her defense that style grew worse I think from strokes.
Her questions were tuned a bit to the side of needing to end with a little accusational looking question mark, like a new emoticon. Something a bit sharp and needly. Mom could sustain that tension. However I felt she was supposed to be a journalist.

6) Worry

Here I'm not going to say I think this is a lesson for all of us really. It is for me. Watching her with worry and anxiety I know what a cruel task master. I saw her struggle with that

7) Just don't smoke

8)  Above all else do not yield

9) This one my kid's helped me recall-keep trying to find the best fudge recipe

10) Enjoy the sun, a new experience, looking out a car window, someone new, your purse, getting attention, remembering, your friends, walking for sure, working, doing wash, cooking, bridge, your computer, TV, so many things.


There are others but I'm feeling like crying awhile.

It's a hard thing for me, the timing was just really amazingly weird. I would love her to be here-but she can't. Most all the other times in my life she was.

I loved my mom, the first lesson might be love family.