THE LOGISTICS WERE SIMPLE. Barbara called the hospice, and Tammy came over right away. The Seasons night nurse called the funeral home—the one Barbara had identified, the one that would honor Mom’s longstanding contract with the National Cremation Society.
It turns out that funeral homes have a man available in the middle of the night to carry away your loved one. He will arrive as if he has just stepped from behind a desk, dressed in a suit and tie, shoes shined. He will not look tired. He will not say much, but his few words will reach you on palpable waves of compassion. Perhaps, like me, you will wonder how he can seem to care so much about one more person, one more body, at 2:30 in the morning. Maybe he is simply adept at reflecting grief.
We were home by 3:00 a.m. Barbara poured herself a shot of Maker’s Mark, and I sipped some red wine. We collapsed on the sofa in the family room.
“It’s so weird,” I said.
“I know,” Barbara replied.
“I mean, she’s gone, but where did she go?”
“It makes me wish I believed in the kind of heaven where she could be reunited with Daddy, and with her mother. It makes me wish she believed in it.”
“I guess I don’t think she’s anywhere, but maybe everywhere—like a little bit in you, and in me, and in everyone she’s known and touched in some way.”
We sipped our drinks. I leaned my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes.
“I don’t know if I’ll sleep, but I need to lie down,” I said.
Barbara slid over and hugged me.
“Sleep as long as you can. We’ll figure everything out tomorrow,” she said.
We took the rest of Saturday off. We slept late. After I called Klein, Phil drove us to Beaufort just to get away from New Bern. We had lunch by the harbor, then wandered the docks. Barbara called Dena. I called mom’s best friend Lenore, who agreed to let Ginny know, and Susan, the manager of Gulf Harbors in New Port Richey. I remember bright, hot sunshine, and feeling dull and gray by comparison. My eyes hurt.
It took only a day and a half to clean out Mom’s room. Some of her clothes went into bags for Goodwill, some we threw away, and some we left for the Seasons staff. I packed up all the family heir-looms from the étagère for transport to Barbara’s house, where we would divide them up. After clearing it with Letty, we decided to leave most of the furniture, which she would offer to the staff.
Dena joined us on Monday morning. We gave her Mom’s garnet ring and matching earrings, and one of the bird figurines from the étagère. We told her she was welcome to take any of the furniture she wanted. We let her give us one dollar, so if anyone asked, we could say she had paid for the items.
“What are you doing with that?” Dena pointed to the portrait of Barbara and me as children in our poufy dresses.
“Well, neither of us wants it,” I said, “so I guess we’ll just get rid of it.”
“Could I take it?” Dena asked.
Barbara and I looked at each other. “Uh, sure,” Barbara stammered.
“I think it’s pretty, and it will remind me of you two every time I see it,” Dena said.
We helped her load the two-foot-square picture and a small table into her car, then hugged her and said our goodbyes.
“I’m gonna write you,” Dena called.
“I’ll write back,” I said.
“What in the world are her friends going to think when they see that portrait hanging in Dena’s house?” Barbara chuckled as we walked in from the parking lot.
“Gotta love her!” I said.
On Monday afternoon, Barbara and I met with the funeral director. We declined to have Mom’s cremains made into pendants or dolphin statues. Mom had not left instructions about where to scatter her ashes, but she had scattered Daddy around their New Port Richey condo. I thought she might like to join him there. Barbara and I agreed to have Mom’s cremains shipped to me so I could take her “home.”
Mom’s estate had been in the best possible shape when she died. All of her assets were in either the joint bank account she had shared with Barbara, or the revocable trust that named Barbara and me as successor trustees. That meant we could cover all her bills by writing checks, and then distribute the remaining funds when we were ready. Even so, it would be several months before we worked out all the details of how to close the trust and file taxes for 2010.
Mom’s will contained instructions for certain bequests to friends—Lenore, Ginny, and Susan—and she had left handwritten notecards for each of them. Though there was no obligation to make these bequests (the trust took precedence over the will), Barbara and I knew why Mom had named these people in her will. She wanted them to celebrate their treasured friendships with her. Before I left New Bern, we wrote the checks and sent the cards with our cover note.
Several days after my return to Miami, I stopped at my neighborhood Starbucks and ordered a cappuccino to go. While I waited for the barista to make the drink, my friend Kim called to see how I was doing.
“I’m at Starbucks, 95th Street,” I said.
“I’ll walk the dog over and meet you.” Kim lived just six blocks away.
I found a comfortable chair in the corner, and sat down to wait. I never go to the coffee shop without something to do. Usually, I have my computer and a work project. I like to get out of the house, and I find it easier to concentrate when surrounded by quiet conversations that don’t concern me. Sometimes, I bring a book. That day, I had nothing to occupy my mind while Kim gathered up the dog and walked those six blocks.
I rummaged in my purse for something to read. I found a grocery list, a bunch of receipts from the Harris Teeter in New Bern, and a copy of Mom’s living will. More than a year earlier, I had reviewed the legal document, then put it in my purse. I’d carried it with me all that time without ever looking at it—two pages bearing the letterhead for the Law Offices of H. Curtis Skipper, P.A., New Port Richey, Florida. The memo was addressed in all capital letters:
TO MY FAMILY, MY PHYSICIAN, MY ATTORNEY, MY CLERGYMAN:
TO ANY MEDICAL FACILITY IN WHOSE CARE I HAPPEN TO BE:
TO ANY INDIVIDUAL WHO MAY BECOME RESPONSIBE
FOR MY HEALTH, WELFARE, OR FINANICAL AFFAIRS.
The first page included a declaration—Death is as much a reality as birth, growth, maturity, and old age—and her wishes for the end of her life: her desire to avoid the indignities of deterioration, dependence, and hopeless pain; her desire that her death not be artificially prolonged, and that she be permitted to die naturally, with medications to provide comfort; her wish not to have artificial nutrition or hydration; her acceptance of the consequences of refusing medical treatment when it was determined she was terminally ill; her hope that those who cared for her would feel legally and morally bound to fulfill her stated wishes; and her intention, through the living will, to relieve us from making these difficult decisions, and to place that responsibility on herself.
“I just don’t want to be a burden.” She had said it so many times, in so many ways. This document laid out the strength of her convictions.
Reading that living will, I was flooded with relief. We had honored her wishes. We had found compassionate caregivers who had spared Mom from being completely dependent on us—perhaps her biggest fear. We had let her go naturally, without tubes or machines. I wondered, is this why I came to hospice work? To prepare me for this death?
Still, as sure as I was that Mom had died on her own terms, there were aspects of the final years of her life that I’ll never be sure about. Did we wait too long to move her to North Carolina? If we had forced her into assisted living, or to have a caregiver at night, could we have prevented the big fall that precipitated her decline—or would those changes have dampened her spirit, which could have been as devastating as the fall? Did the pacemaker surgery, meant to improve her quality of life, actually diminish it by landing her in rehab?
I had been haunted by these decisions at the time they were made. I thought writing about it all would dispel the ghosts. Instead, I have come to think that doubt is the nature of this beast. We can never be certain what constitutes the “best” option when caring for aging parents. We can only try to discern what seems right at the moment. Barbara and I always erred on the side of preserving Mom’s independence, knowing how fiercely she claimed it. Had that been best for her? It was never easy for us.
What puzzles me most is why, over and over again, Mom chose Barbara. She chose to move to New Bern, not Miami. She chose to die when she was alone with Barbara. And, on the second page of her advance directive, she designated Barbara as her primary healthcare surrogate, with me as back-up if Barbara was “unwilling or unable.”
The language was legalese—boilerplate. Mom never doubted whether she could count on Barbara. And Barbara, who perhaps never thought she would be chosen, who never expected to be “the one,” who was perhaps more able than willing, had stepped up in every way. When I overreacted out of emotion, Barbara could be more dispassionate, and therefore more effective.
I’ll never know whether Mom thought it through, whether she had a plan. I do know, however, how it turned out. She spared me the enormous burden of her day-to-day care—a job I would have taken on without question, and with such fervor that I would have risked my job, my health, and my marriage. Mom and I had been close for years; we were sympatico. She did what she thought was best for me. She protected me.
At the same time, she forced her way into Barbara’s life at a point when Barbara couldn’t say no. For her part, Barbara not only accepted the mantle thrust upon her, she excelled in the role of caregiver. She did laundry, went along on outings with the “geezers,” entertained Mom at home, and baked her birthday cakes. She became “the good daughter” that Mom had always wanted her to be, and they both knew it.
Barbara also took care of me. She eased me into Mom’s decline, always seeing it more clearly than I did, but never forcing me to accept more than I was ready for. She was gentle with Mom and with me—forcefully, purposefully gentle. In assuming the brunt of Mom’s care, Barbara gave me the space to separate, so I could bear Mom’s death.
What Mom spared Barbara was the burden of remorse. I cannot know how Barbara would have felt if she and Mom had remained semi-estranged, because they didn’t.
So, what of my vow to make Mom’s life the best it could possibly be in the years after Daddy died? The task proved humbling. I had written academic papers on quality of life at the end of life, but as Mom declined, I could only guess at what “quality of life” meant for her. When she told us she didn’t need (meaning she didn’t want) a caregiver at night, did she mean she valued taking care of herself, by herself, more than she valued her own safety? Was she capable of understanding that distinction? Parenting an adult is not like parenting a child. Even when Mom seemed childlike, she retained the right to autonomy that children have not yet earned.
There exist no training classes for adult children caring for aging parents, and none for our overly independent parents to learn how to accept our care. Barbara and I did as well as we knew how to do, and so did Mom. Even our successes were often painful.
What sustained us after Mom moved to New Bern was a combination of devotion and duty—or maybe devotion to duty, even as those duties changed. During Mom’s final years, our roles in the Pratt Family Circus slowly altered. Mom went from consummate ringmaster to scary tightrope walker who couldn’t remember to wear a safety belt. I stepped back from my place as star performer and tried to adapt to a supporting role, punctuated by the occasional swing on the trapeze. And Barbara went from spectator to the most important role of all—the one who held the net.