Family Bonds

Welcome to Service – The Action Form of Love

There doesn’t seem to be much that is positive about a loved one passing away. It’s really difficult to find the silver lining around that particular cloud.

Mama, the gentlewoman who carried, bore, raised and loved me for 45 years passed away just under 5 months ago.

During the week the family crowded into (and more or less took over) the ICU waiting room, I don’t think any of us were seeing anything but the dark clouds. As I look back on that time, however, I can finally see a glimmer of something positive. I had a full week with all my brothers and sisters and father – and a full week to reassure mama that I loved her and I knew she loved me, too.

Somehow, the death of a loved one can bring families and friends together like no other occasion. It’s strange how easily hatchets can be buried, arguments forgotten, debts forgiven. The bonding (or re-bonding as the case may be) is one that is powerful and seems so strong that it will never again break.

So it is with our family.

We had a trial run at survivorship when mama’s middle child, Mark passed away in December, 2005. As another brother reminded us, we were in uncharted territory. Other than grandparents, this was the first death to strike so close to our homes and hearts. We were taken unawares and uprepared.

There were parallels in the final days of Mark and mama. Both spent time in the ICU, though at different hospitals. Both had the whole family at the hospital for their final farewells.

Both brought the rest of us a resolve to stay connected through phone calls, email and personal visits. Both slipped peacefully away as easily and simply as stepping out of their bodies and walking through the veil.

Both knew they were loved.

After Mark passed, we siblings determined to maintain our new focus on the family. We were determined to not let life and work creep back in again and interfere with what meant most to us. We resolved to stay in touch, no matter what.

I can’t say we failed, but I think we can all admit we didn’t stay as connected as we would have liked.

In the early days of 2006, we called each other once a week, if not once a day. We constantly sent text messages of love and support, asking how the others were feeling and handling things. We’ve always loved each other, but it seemed we were much more willing to show our love in more concrete ways.

But, as it has a way of doing, life did indeed creep back in. The messages of support became more rare, and we relied on family get-together’s like Christmas, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day to bring us together.

And then, mama got sick.

I had become immersed in my job and career and was at work one afternoon when I noticed my phone was vibrating a lot more than usual. I finally took a break and saw that my siblings had been trying to reach me for a few hours. I contacted one of them and learned that mama had gone into the hospital, thinking she’d had a heart attack.

By the next night, she was in the ICU, but her heart was fine. She had managed to aspirate something and was failing swallow tests. Her condition from then on would bounce from good to bad to worse to teetering on the edge between going home and going Home.

I admit, I was selfish.

When I learned mama was in the hospital with the heart attack symptoms, I told my siblings I would come up “if they needed me to”. Mama had been in the hospital countless times in her later years, and I guess I presumed this was another case where they’d treat her and send her home.

I was truly humbled the next morning when I arrived at the ICU and saw my family holding vigil in the waiting room.

Less than a week later, mama indicated to us that she was ready to go. We had brought in a miniature white board and marker, set it on her lap, and let her hands tell us what she couldn’t tell us with the respirator on. The messages she wrote in her beautiful shaky handwriting told us that her story was nearing an end.

She wrote things like:

“I’ve been miserable for so long.”

“Make sure he (dad) isn’t sad.”

“I’m tired.”

“I’m dead.”

The day before she died, we siblings were all downstairs in the hospital cafeteria, eating lunch. A niece of mine came down with a message from mama. “Finish your lunch, then come up, have a family prayer, then shut the door and let me die.”

We accommodated mama’s wishes. When we got that message, we couldn’t finish our lunch anyway.

Surrounding her bed, we watched in agony as mama struggled to breathe even with the help of a BiPap machine. Her eyes were open, glistening and aware as we sang “I Am a Child of God.” We then said our final goodbyes, and left the room.

The next day, life support was removed, and she was gone far quicker than any of us expected her to go. We know she lives on, even today, because of our faith, but also because of what we’ve seen and sensed in the intervening months.

So, why am I rambling about the loss of my mama? Well, I’m not, really.

This is about the loss of family connection. The feeling of a loss of bonds that were forged in the face of losing Mark and mama.

I foolishly presumed mama would come out of the hospital, just as she always had, sitting in the passenger seat of dad’s old station wagon. I foolishly thought she would be around forever.

So, here’s today’s challenge:

Don’t be foolish.

Pick up the phone and call your mom, your dad, a favorite aunt or uncle. Call a sibling your child your grandparent, a friend.

Call just to see how they’re doing.

Call just to tell them the words we all long to hear.

Call just to say “I love you.”

Thank you for reading today’s challenge. Thank you for being willing to accept and perform small and simple acts of service for others. You are making a difference in the lives of others.

Thank you for remembering that Service is The Action Form of Love.

James

Learning by Example

Welcome to Service – The Action Form of Love

We all have strengths and we all have weaknesses.

Some days, our weaknesses seem to outdo our strengths. On other days, the reverse is true.

One of my strengths is to be able to treat others with respect in many situations. Now, please don’t think I’m bragging here. It’s a learned strength. One learned from years of watching my mother and father deal with people in varied circumstances.

I learned how to be kind by watching and emulating their example.

For years before I really “got it”, though, one of my greatest weaknesses was that I could not seem to treat anyone with any measure of respect or kindness. For much of my adult life, I was a nasty, judgmental and downright rude person.

People would come to visit, and if I bothered to answer the door, I’d leave them sitting in the living room and go back to my bedroom until the awkwardness of the situation would be too much and they would finally leave.

I have many more stories like that, but I’d really prefer not to dwell on them (and I’d especially prefer you not remembering me like that!)

The point is, a weakness was turned into a strength by the patient teaching of my honorable parents. They acted, I learned.

We all have things we need to work on. We all have patient teachers around us who are willing to share what they know; who they are.

So, here’s today’s challenge:

Think of someone in your circle of influence who has a strength you admire.

It could be a coworker.

It could be a family member.

It could be someone you attend school with or who rides in your carpool.

When you’ve thought of them, determine that beginning today, you will try to learn from their example.

Watch them as they do what it is you’d like to learn how to do.

Listen to them as they talk the talk and walk the walk.

It’s okay to take notes, and it’s certainly okay to approach them and tell them what you’re doing. Ask for their help. Ask them to teach you just one thing about how they do what they do.

Then, as you continue to watch them day by day, try doing the same things. You don’t have to be a carbon copy of the person. You can mold and fit and adjust so that it feels natural to you.

But do it.

Starting today.

Find someone who has a strength you want, and then begin to acquire that strength yourself.

Thank you so much for reading today’s challenge.

Thank you for being willing to learn something about serving others as well as yourself.

Thank you for sharing this post with others. Thank you for posting it on message boards, for forwarding it in emails, for retweeting and for Stumbling it.

I truly appreciate you for understanding that…

Service is The Action Form of Love

James

Mama and the Hospice Experience

Welcome to Service – The Action Form of Love

This week, I’m blogging about something many of us may never encounter. Frankly, until fairly recently, I didn’t think I’d get close enough to this program to really get to understand it.

I thought I would be lucky or blessed if our paths never crossed.

This week, I’m blogging about hospice.

You see, until about nine months ago, I thought hospice was only for people with a terminal illness. I presumed their function was to ease the sufferer’s pain and gently guide them from the transition from mortality to eternity.

Sometime around summer of 2008, my parents told me that mama’s doctor had set her up on in-home hospice. My initial reaction was one of alarm.

Why did mom need hospice, I asked? She wasn’t exactly healthy, but she didn’t have a terminal illness, either. True, she had been nearly homebound for several years, but that was because of her fibromyalgia and post-polio syndrome and age. She didn’t have cancer, had never had a stroke or a heart attack. I was flabbergasted that Dr. Jack would assign a hospice team to her.

Rachel, the hospice nurse, was a very kind, compassionate young lady. She was always gentle with mama and very understanding of all the questions my dad tossed at her. The one thing all of us wanted to know was why?

Why hospice? Why now?

To their credit, the doctor and Rachel patiently explained to us that hospice is not just a program for those expected to die right away. It’s also to help ensure people like mama are in a safe, secure and healthy environment.

Hospice doesn’t just help people die; it also to help people live.

Besides Rachel coming over and helping dad manage mama’s daily medications, there were others who came and helped her in other ways. One sweet young lady came three times a week to help mama get in and out of the shower. Others cooked and planned meals and helped with her physical therapy exercises.

According to the medical professionals who cared for mom, there are two phases to hospice care. The care mama received last year was the first phase – the phase that helped both my parents have a better quality of life.

The other phase, the part where hospice helps patient and family prepare for, accept and endure the death of their loved one came later for us.

Sometime just before Thanksgiving, 2008, dad called me on the phone. While we chatted he mentioned that, due to the family members enduring various financial difficulties, he was thinking of cancelling the family Christmas party. I told him I would go along with whatever the rest of the family decided. Later, he told me that mama had gotten quite upset with him.

He said that she heard him talking to me and my other siblings about not having the party and she burst into tears. When he asked what the matter was, she told him we had to have the Christmas party because this would likely be her last with us.

Now, I don’t know about you, and I’ll not try and make you believe as I do. But, I believe mama knew. She knew her time was at hand to shuffle off her mortal coil and join her other family members on the other side of the veil.

Two months later, in January of this year, I had forgotten all about that conversation. I kept feeling my cellphone vibrate in its holster. Ordinarily, I don’t answer my cell at work but the vibrating was so persistent I finally took a break to see who was trying to reach me.

It was my family.

Three siblings had been trying to call and text message me all day. When I finally called them back, I learned that mama was in the hospital, and they suspected a heart attack. They had run some tests that night and would have the results in the morning.

I was told that she should be okay, she looked and felt better, but they were keeping her overnight, just in case.

By the next day, things had taken a dramatic turn. Although it was confirmed that mama hadn’t suffered a heart attack, she somehow aspirated and began having a very difficult time breathing.

She had gotten worse, and had been moved to the Intensive Care Unit.

That morning, I called out from work and my wife dropped me off at the hospital front door. I went up to the ICU waiting room and found my siblings and dad sitting in the chairs against the wall. As I walked in, I remember thinking how strange it was to see dad and the kids all in one place, but without mama at his side.

Dad warned me that if I was going to go in and see her to be prepared. She didn’t look much like herself. She had tubes and wires and a respirator.

There wasn’t much more he could have done to warn me, and still it wasn’t enough.

When I went back through the ICU doors, I first went into the wrong room. There was a woman laying in a coma, and I thought, dad was right. That didn’t look like mom at all. A kind nurse came and directed me to the right room, but the sight wasn’t really any better. On the bed was my mama, but she sure didn’t look like her. The lady in the next room actually resembled her more.

Throughout the days my family and I spent there, most of us had the feeling that mama wouldn’t be going home with dad from this hospital trip. Some of us talked about it, but others pushed it back into the recesses of our minds, not wanting to acknowledge it.

From the first morning I was there until the fateful afternoon a week later, mama had been through some ups and downs. Sometimes we took hope that there was something the medical staff could fix, and other times, we thought she would die before the end of the day.

Throughout it all, dad stayed and hoped against hope he would be driving his wife of 61 years back home to recuperate. Though her prognosis indicated it would have taken six or more months just to get her back to the point she was before going to the hospital, dad was willing to make the sacrifice to stay by her side and care for her, even ignoring his own needs in the process.

For most of the day, he would stand at her bedside, crouched over; holding her limp hand while she slept, and while she was awake.

I think of anyone who didn’t want to believe it was the end, it was dad.

A couple of days before she died, my wife and I talked about what mom wanted. Did she want to keep fighting a losing battle, or did she want to just let go and go Home? That day, I went in and had a talk with her.

“Mama,” I said, “do you want to keep fighting?”

She looked at me with such love, I’m choking on tears now just writing about it. She managed a weak smile, and held up a shaky finger and said, “Maybe one more day.”

The next day, she went to sleep, and the nursing staff and chaplain helped dad to know it was time to let her go. I can only imagine how hard that was for him.

We made the decision to pull mama’s life support, and, as family spokesman, it was my responsibility to deliver that directive to mom’s doctor. Though I don’t feel the same way now, at that very moment, when I had to pick up the phone and let the ICU staff know, I felt like an executioner.

It was probably the worst day in my life, and I imagine, the toughest day dad and my siblings had ever experienced. We were sore and fatigued, emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically. Though we had a full week for a wonderful family reunion, we all agree that it would have been much better under different circumstances.

And then, when our emotions just couldn’t get any rawer, Rachel showed up. While dad had told us he wanted to be with mama when she slipped away, he let Rachel take his place at her bedside.

We were all in the family waiting room when the life support was removed. We were spared having to watch her take her last breath and go Home.

Twenty or so minutes after the tubes, respirator and wires were removed, Rachel joined us in the waiting room. She was crying, and we knew.

She gently knelt down next to dad and told him mama was gone.

We all knew the news was coming. The day before she passed, my siblings and I were eating in the hospital cafeteria when my niece came down with a message from mom. She wanted us to finish our lunch, come back up to her room long enough to say a family prayer, and then she wanted us to close her door and let her go.

Still, knowing it was her time – knowing she was ready to go – it was a heartbreaking event. Not one of us wanted mama to leave, even though she’d spent the past several years in a damaged body with a slightly confused mind. On the other hand, we couldn’t bear the thought of her staying around just because we selfishly wanted our mom to be with us a little longer.

In retrospect, maybe mama knew something long before Thanksgiving. Maybe she told Dr. Jack something she didn’t share with us, and that’s why he ordered hospice. I really don’t have the answer, and it really doesn’t matter.

What does and did matter was that Rachel and the entire hospice team was there.

They were there to help mom and dad live, and they were there to help mom die. Most importantly, Rachel was there when we absolutely needed her the most.

All in all, mama’s death would have been so much harder to deal with if not for hospice.

So, your challenge today:

Find something you can do to help your local hospice team.

Can you donate money? They surely need and deserve every penny they can get.

Can you visit them and find out what they’re all about? Someday someone you love may need their services. I can tell you from our experience it was better to know what they were all about before the time came for mama to pass.

Do you know someone who works for a hospice? How about calling them and just telling them how brave you think they are for what they do?

I’ll leave it up to you and to your imagination to decide how you can serve.

Thank you for reading today’s post. Thank you for being willing to share it with others. Thank you for always remembering that…

Service is The Action Form of Love.

Mama's Day

Welcome to Service – The Action Form of Love

Mother’s Day – what does it mean to you?

Regardless of how we currently interact with our mothers, the fact remains that we all have one. Due to life’s disappointments, sometimes our relationships with our mothers degrade. It happens.

Even if that’s happened in your life, today’s challenge applies to you and to all of us.

Thank your mom today.

If you’re like me, and your mama has passed on, find another mother you cherish, love and respect and thank her.

Simple.

You can do it!

Thanks for taking time to read today’s post. I appreciate you!

Thanks also for being willing to share this with others.

Service is the Action Form of Love

James