30 Days

10 April 2022 – 30 days ago, my mama was laid to rest. While most people don’t feel the need to blog about this normal event in our lives, I have to because there was NOTHING ‘normal’ about this life event.

Pardon me if I am covering things you know but I want to put this in perspective. It is how I am processing things myself. I will share with you what happened and then I will share with you all the questions/comments I have been juggling in the aftermath.

On March 6, 2012, after I had spent 3 days in and out of the hospital hoping that my daddy would wake up, life support was removed that morning and at 12:25pm he took his last breath. I was there. I found myself glued to the floor staring at my brother who stood by his side holding his hand and looking at me, insisting that I stay. I wanted to move. I wanted to go to him and be HIS rock. On March 5, 2022, I was once again standing on that same floor by my mother’s bedside. Just around the corner from where I stood 10 years prior. This time, I was all alone. My brother, that was my rock 10 years ago, was now a tyrant, who had “given” me 45 minutes see her and process this situation. I cried, though she would have fussed at me for doing so. I stood over her lifeless body, that didn’t even look like her. Her salt and pepper hair had turned mostly to salt. The last time I had seen her she wasn’t so … thin, bruised, covered in sores or lifeless. I hated what I was looking at because I had no answers. I had no idea how it came to me standing here – all alone. My daddy’s voice echoed in the room, “she is going to die a lonely bitter woman“. I told her, I don’t want him to be right. I don’t want her to be alone. I don’t want her to go like this.

The doctor came in and gave me no insights. He just reminded me that I had 45 minutes because my brother wanted me out when he arrived. All I could think was, “this doctor probably sees families at their worst but it can’t be easy for him to say that”. I took my 45 minutes…leaving my mama alone at 1:45pm on March 5, 2022.

What happened afterwards is something from a TV drama. While talking to the doctors in the waiting room on the 3rd floor, it was brought to my attention that my brother and his family had arrived. At some point a security guard had arrived and stood that the waiting room door. He entered the room upon this announcement and there was talk of being escorted off the floor. I refused to be escorted. I left the room and went down to the lobby – alone. Moments later, another security guard approached and asked me to wait with him on the 2nd floor while my brother and his family were escorted in to see my mother. I refused. I was not a threat to anyone. I had done nothing wrong to hide. Reluctantly, he walked away. I sat and watched as my brother and his family stepped onto the elevator, followed by the security guard. How did we get here!?! Why is my baby brother so afraid of me?

A while later, maybe a few hours, the doctors stepped off the elevator and approached me. I was glad they knew I hadn’t left but wondered how they knew. They asked if they could talk to me privately and we found a quite place to talk. They said that my brother had given them permission to fill me in on mama’s condition. I learned that she had been put in a home. I had to stop them mid sentence to process this news. I was infuriated by this news even though I had my own suspicions after my brother threw me off his property December 26, 2021. Daddy was VERY clear when he said he didn’t want her to end up in a home…yet my brother had put her there! They finally continued. They said that she presented on February 18th or 19th, with COVID symptoms. They had already done all they could do for her and the previous Thursday my brother had made the decision to end care for her, as they had done all they could. They said that he had chosen to remove the support but wanted to give me my time before he did. It wasn’t easy to hear. They said given her condition, it would be a matter of minutes and she would be gone. I asked, “can I be there with her?” They told me “no, my brother does not want me there”. That was even harder to hear.

I couldn’t bring myself to leave the hospital. Several attempts were made to get my brother to reconsider allowing me back to her beside. Each time it was answered with “NO”. Finally, he issued a “leave the hospital” order via the front desk clerk. I refused to leave and he wasn’t going to make me. I walked outside and made calls. I have so many people I can lean on and I needed to hear from them. One by one, I made the calls…each person reacted with “what an asshole”, when I told them the events that had transpired. Many of them said they would pray for me but say a special prayer for him to find it in his heart to do the right thing. I knew it wasn’t going to happen but their prayer was coming from the right place and it was needed.

I eventually took refuge in my truck. I sat and just replayed everything over the last 4 months in my head. I watched as my sister-in-law, neice and nephew were escorted by security to their car. You would think they were some sort of local small town celebrity. I couldn’t wrap my head around their thinking. Who had hurt them? Who were they so afraid of?

Knowing my brother was alone I wanted to walk up there. He wouldn’t expect it yet he may cause a scene. I wasn’t going to show my ass and make him look like a victim. I wasn’t going to allow what ever picture he had painted of me become reality. So I fought the urge. My best friend called me begging me to leave the hospital and get some rest. Reluctantly, I gave up and left sometime around 9pm, but not before glancing up at that room window and silently begging the Good Lord to hold on to her until tomorrow, I would return.

The next morning, a Sunday, March 6, 2022, I arrived at the hospital just like I had 10 years ago, around 8am. I saw my brother’s truck was still in the same spot. I parked. I knew I wouldn’t be updated but I knew that if I called the nurses station it would get back to my brother, so I called. I asked the attending nurse for an update and moments later I was told no changes and I am not allowed to know anything else. Frustrated, I thanked them and hung up. I sat for a few hours before I decided to do a quick errand before I had to see daddy at 12:25. I arrived at the gravesite on schedule and spent about a half hour talking to daddy. I then returned to my parking spot a the hospital hoping for a prayer to be answered and my brother to loosen his control. When I arrived, his truck was gone but his wife’s car was there. I wanted to think he had gone to see daddy, but deep down, I knew better. I venture to guess he hadn’t been to the gravesite much, if at all, in 10 years. I am pretty sure we would have crossed paths if he had, but then again, I wasn’t really looking for him.

I kept my post there for a few more hours. Darkness fell and I left again to get some rest and return the next day.

Monday, March 7, 2022, after the funeral for one of my Great Uncle’s, I returned to the hospital. I parked and watched. So many people were walking in with somber faces. Shoulders heavy with burdens of sick loved ones through those doors. Many of them were meeting in the parking lot hugging and shaking hands. They had a support system. I wanted to be supportive for my family, specifically my brother at that moment. It wasn’t very long ’til my sister-in-law arrived…shortly after that, my brother left. I watched him walking to his truck. He looked…troubled. I wanted to get out and approach him. I was hurting and angry and I knew he was too. I wanted to plead with him to let me be there for him. I wanted to be there for mama. I also knew that if I did approach him he would most likely accuse me of threatening him…so I refrained. I just wanted to be the big sister that I was suppose to be. I replayed the day daddy took his last breath and the anger grew inside. I made a few calls. At the funeral that morning, I learned that the extended family had information and connections. So I made calls to find out if I could get information about my mama. At some point, I missed a call. I called back only to learn that my mama had passed away around 1:40pm. As I was hearing this, I was watching my sister-in-law loading her car with personal items and leave. I was so infuriated. My brother wasn’t even there when mama took her last breath. How in the hell!??!! He didn’t care about her. It was clearly all about him having control. It wasn’t him being the “good son”. As my nanny said, “actions speak louder than words” and his not being there spoke volumes to me! That is a FACT folks. He was NOT there! I was sitting in the parking lot…about as close as he would let me get. At that moment I went into some sort of trance. My parents use to tell me, never drive a car when you are angry. I understand why now. I don’t remember doing it but I found myself sitting in a church parking lot…

I sat there…for what felt like an eternity. Then, my phone pierced through the silence. Answering, I learned that mama had already been moved to the funeral home. Folks…this was the beginning of yet another bad dream that I will have to pick up on later.

For now, I want to stop and share with you what I took away from these events.

I had never envisioned me as someone who would sit graveside and talk to the Earth. The very Earth that held my daddy in it’s grips and would soon hold my mama right beside him. 2012 was a hard year for me. I lost daddy in March, then in December I lost BOTH my nanny AND one of my nearest and dearest friends before Christmas. I had never lost anyone until daddy. So when my nanny and friend passed it changed me.

Looking back now, I remember having a coversation with my mama before daddy got really sick. I was sitting in the middle school parking lot waiting on my kids to get out of school. As usual, I would call her and shoot the shit waiting for her to let me talk to daddy. During this one particular call, she told me of daddy’s recent discussion about what he wanted to do with his body upon his death. She said that he wanted to donate his body to science. She went on to say that she didn’t see anything really wrong with it because she didn’t believe in God anyway. I found myself having a conversation with my mama for which I wasn’t prepared. Instinctly, I remember telling her that I have never seen myself as someone who would sit by the grave of loved ones however; I cannot imagine a loved one just being strung up in a tree somewhere like an animal being studied. (That was my vision of bodies donated for research). I went on to tell her, that I realized it was his choice, but I think that knowing his body was resting beneath the Earth was better than not knowing where it was at all. We never talked about it again.

Now, my mama was gone and I had no clue what would happen to her. I knew her beliefs then but not now. We didn’t get to have that talk. Would she remember my words and would it impact her choices? The last time I talked to her, she didn’t seem to be “all there” but I didn’t have any indication that she was going to be taken so fast. We had always had a very strained relationship. I had never gotten her to explain to me why she seemed to hate me so much. I had forgiven her, though I never got to tell her. Once I heard about her diagnosis, I realized that there was a remote possiblity that she had been sick my entire life and she wouldn’t know the answer to my question. I had never harbored any anger towards her, my brother or my sister. Things happened. I think, that because of her illness, Mama was a great manipulator and I spent my childhood walking on egg shells. I was accused my entire life of being a liar and consequently always questioning things I knew happened. I held onto so many things afraid of not being believed. Those things have had a profound impact on me as an adult…as a wife…as a mother. One example that played in my mind, my daddy was dying and my mother was telling his sister that I “embellished things”. I couldn’t escape her black list … but I have forgiven her. The wedge that was forced between me and my sister started at a young age and carried into adulthood. The only time I remember really feeling like I had a sister was those years after mama and daddy had disowned her….YEAH…WE WILL SAVE THAT CHAPTER FOR ANOTHER DAY.

The wedge between me and my brother appeared out of no where. I still cannot understand what I did to deserve to be treated this way. It was going to get worse but for now, you know where my mind is…still processing things.

Stay tuned for the next chapter….thanks for reading.