Dying is part of the Dance of Life

Part three of my journey with mom

MARCH 20th

Right now, Mom is at a beach house in Oxnard with my sisters, giving them time to process the reality of the situation. We're not all on the same page medically. So we had a meeting. Mom said there were three rules: no harsh words, we had to laugh, and ultimately remember that this is her decision. One of my sisters is still struggling with letting Mom go. It's better now that she can witness Mom's decline first hand, yet it’s still hard.

After my sisters were finished deciding what was best for Mom, I asked her what she felt was happening.

She said she thinks that she hasn't decided whether to stay or go and that's why it seems like the cannabis isn't working, that's why she's still sick.

I told her that I do not believe there is any "thing" we can give her that will cure her cancer. I believe that only she has the power to cure herself. And if she chooses to go, I told her I would help her pass as gracefully as possible.

MAY 8th

Mom is gone.

Not to heaven, not yet. She's in Utah.

After that horrific two weeks in March when Mom finally understood she was dying, she returned to my care. She had lost another ten pounds, was weak, dehydrated, worn out from pain. I got her rehydrated, switched her cannabis from oral to suppositories (which controls pain and nausea much better without the psychoactive effects...sometimes, I feel like I'm on the set of Breaking Bad...as I experiment with the best way to formulate cannabis for cancer).

Anyhow, I called hospice for palliative care, got physical therapy started, and got her to work with a psychospiritual therapist. I then sat down and had a come to Jesus talk with her (or come to Buddha talk, as she was reading Buddhist books at the time). I asked her again if she was ready to die and she emphatically said, NO!

"Then, Mom, you are going to have to take control of your health care. Just like I teach my patients. You must be in the driver's seat when it comes to your health."

Mom showed her true spirit and rallied. She took over her own meds, even learned to administer her own suppositories (a very comical experience...goodness knows, if we couldn't find the humor in this cancer-drama and laugh, we'd be crying all the time).

Mom began preparing her own meals and ate every couple of hours trying to gain the pounds she'd lost.

She became discouraged when her weight didn't change after a week of trying, so I taught her how to eat consciously. How to not just be grateful for the food, but to bless each and every bite, and instruct that precious food to do for her body what she wished. A week later she had put back on six pounds.

Under the guidance of her therapist, Mom arranged meetings either by phone or in person with the people in her life she needed to release. On Easter Sunday, she even performed a profoundly beautiful and heart wrenching ceremony, first releasing her mother, then my sisters, and finally in tears...me.

I tried to help Mom die consciously, and she began to live consciously.

By mid April, it was clear Mom had taken a turn for the better. It was time for her to be with my sisters.

She agreed.

I called my sisters. They were excited that Mom seemed better. I warned them that it might be the calm before the storm. The time when the terminally ill rally, seem so much better, then slip away. They didn't care. They just wanted to spend what good days Mom had left with her.

So I did for Mom what she did for me and released her.

My sister flew out from Utah and drove our mother north. Mom finally got to see Jarys' new apartment and bring them a fruit bowl (because it's not a home unless you have a bowl full of fruit to offer your guests).

Then they headed to Vallejo to stay at the twin's beach house for a few days. Then my sister flew with Mom to Utah.

It was hard letting her go. Trusting that she would be ok without me. Trusting that I would be ok without her.

It wasn't an easy transition. The day my sister arrived here, Mom got off her schedule, skipped a dose of cannabis, became paranoid, insomniac, emotional. Her change in mood appeared to be chemical, but perhaps it was fear.

Too much, too soon, yet there was so little time left to complete her "bucket list" (Mom's terminology, not mine). I don't believe in putting all my dreams, wishes, aspirations into a bucket to do "someday".

I believe the time is NOW- to be fully present each and every moment.

Before she left, Mom wanted to see Kyra. When Mom first got out of the hospital, she dreamt Kyra told her she was having a baby. That evening Kyra gave her a stuffed elephant she bedazzled with her crocheted wedding doilies. She told her Grandma Honey to please sleep with the toy to imprint it with her energy so when she's through with it, Kyra can give the elephant to her babies. After sleeping with it for the past four months, Mom returned the elephant to Kyra. (And years later, Kyra’s daughter Benji sleeps with her Grandma Honey elephant.)

At this point I truly wished I felt more confident about this path I'm on with Mom. It was easier when she was here. I could take her pulse and reassure myself that all was well.

She's been gone two weeks and I haven't heard from her. She's in transition from my care to theirs, but since we began working together at Full Circle Family Health, not a week has passed that I haven't heard Mom's voice, received a text, an email, a FaceBook post.

Guess I'm being prepared for the inevitable. It's easy to talk. The walk is much, much harder.

One sunny afternoon in late March we were out in the courtyard, enjoying family, food, and music, so I invited Mom to dance. She has always been an amazing dancer. You may not have known this, but she danced on American Bandstand in the fifties. Some of my earliest memories are dancing in the living room with my mother, my baby sisters doing their best to keep up.

Fifty years later, I held my mother in my arms and we danced. Even through a wave of nausea that day, she kept dancing. Not even cancer could keep her from feeling the music. Mom's the one who taught me that life is a dance. And I now see that the dance never really ends.

(to be continued)

Mom with Jarys and Kyra on our trip back to Philly in 1990