RIP Mom - The Long Midwest Goodbye
Ever since I left for college and came home for the first time, I've experienced my Mom's "Midwest goodbye." We'd first say goodbye in the kitchen, then again in the foyer, and once again from the front porch as I got into my car, honked, and waved as I finally drove away. Mom would even walk down to the street to make sure I could see her in my rearview mirror, waving as I turned the corner.
Mom never wanted the goodbye to be over.
The same happened this weekend.
We got the news from the hospice nurse the previous weekend that we had days, not weeks, until my Mom’s Alzheimer's would bring her time on this earth to a close. My Dad reached out to me and my siblings, saying it was time to come and say our goodbyes. Within a few days, everyone had made travel plans to be with Mom at her nursing home in Athens, TX. Maddie, Eloise, and I flew in from New York for Eloise's first flight. My sister Katie flew in from Ireland. My brother Nathan and his wife Arlene drove in from Austin. My brother Peter and his family drove in from Frisco, TX. When we all arrived, we were only missing Katie’s husband, Abe, and kids, Tadhg and Maeve, who couldn't make the trip on such short notice from Ireland.
Over the long weekend, there were moments when just a few of us were in the room with Mom, other times it was just one of us saying our final goodbyes and sharing what we wanted her to know before she was called Home.
The polarity of holding the hand of my dying mother and my 12-week-old baby at the same time is one of the most insane juxtapositions I’ve ever experienced. And I don’t have words for it, just a knowledge of the moment it was.
She was in and out of a deep sleep for most of the time, but when she did open her eyes, you could see how much she wanted to participate in the conversation and the joy she had knowing her family was all together, even if for the hardest of reasons.
And she loved meeting Eloise and the joy that an unaware baby brought to an otherwise somber room. Little Ellie and her baby hijinx were just what the doctor ordered.
After a long day altogether in her room on Sunday, Dad told each of us that it might still be days before Ellen passed and that he thought we should keep our travel plans home later that evening and on Monday. We all said what we knew would be our final goodbyes and started heading home.
It was just Dad and Mom in the room on Monday afternoon. Dad recounted the stories from the weekend and the conversations that happened outside of the room with their kids. Dad told her how much he loved her and how incredible it was that from their love story that started in 1978, there are now 17 of us Ellwoods living big lives all over the world.
When Alzheimer’s first started to mess with my Mom a few years ago, we knew this day would come. But she and my Dad told all four of us kids and our families:
“Don’t let what’s happening here ever slow down the lives you’re building out there. Nothing will honor us more than for you all to live bigger than this eventual sadness will one day be.”
Dad said he could see signs that she might be closer to the end and decided to take a walk to clear his head and get ready for another long night at the nursing home, but also to give her a little quiet after all that had happened in the room over the past few days.
When he returned 20 minutes later, Mom's breathing was heavier and her complexion dimmer. Instead of holding her hand and speaking to her like he'd been doing, he sat quietly and prayed. He later told us he remembered seeing the clock at 7:00 pm and hearing her take a big breath and wondering if it had been her last. A little bit of time passed, and he realized that was the moment she left this world to go be with Jesus.
She held on until the very end, until the final goodbye was there to be said, just like she’d done with our long Midwest goodbyes with each of our visits home.
She didn’t want to miss out on anything all the way to the end.
And now she’ll never have to say goodbye again.
RIP Mom.
