Posted by Ann Teve
September 30, 2009
Filed in Society Girl's Personal Blogs
2,475 views
It was just after 9:00 am on Monday, September 21st 2009 that mother passed away. It was exactly one month from the day that I acted to fulfill her final wish and brought her home. It was three months since I'd had known that her time was near, nine months since I knew that she was even ill and nearly three years since the day I'd arrived at home to be her company in her final years and to begin the final steps of my own transition.
I have lived as Ann for two years now. It has passed in a blink. It wasn't as I imagined it would be. In some ways it was incredibly easy. From the very first day that I arrived at work as Ann, I didn't feel special in any way. Within days, as I now recall, I was Ann. After a life's denial, I guess I expected that it would feel special, different, but it didn't. Did that mean that I'd found myself or was I missing the whole point?
Confidence came quickly to me and for that I must credit my few friends and especially my mother. She'd lost a son but gained a daughter but she did so with grace and kindness and without qualification. We spent a lot of time together, she and I. We'd go shopping and I'd give all the time that she wanted. We'd stop for coffee at Tim Horton's. We'd sit and she'd review her life with candor and honesty, sharing with me as a friend more than as one of her children. She accepted me, wholly. It was a wonderful time.
The pain of crisis that I had endured in the final months before my decision to transition became a reality -- the moment when I left behind my old life, a wife, a house and home, a business, my whole world -- to be myself melted away in her company. I found a style as Ann very similar to my style as Michael. I found inside me the very same person I'd always been. Why does the outward appearance matter so much to us? We must have been quite a pair as we shopped for groceries, we were noticed and often clerks or stock boys would talk to us. We became known. Our lives intertwined. She talked of the future and the little time left, but it wasn't real.
I visited her every day in hospital. She seemed well enough. Certainly, she could be feisty. My siblings came and determined that I could no longer look after her. I 'wasn't well enough'. Mother accepted this at first but as time passed her mind changed. She wanted to go home. The family resisted and pressured her. She resisted in silence, often doubting that she could survive in palliative care or even a home for the elderly.
"What ever it is that you wish, mother, that I what I will do."
A day came that the doctor told her, "There are only a few months now." and she turned to me and said, "Please, would you take me home?" I did.
The anger of the family at this was soon revealed. She came home able to walk with a walker, but no one came to visit. No one called.
"I have done the right thing." she would say to me, "I just want to be at home."
In that first week, she walked to the table each morning. We watched the morning sun sparkle through the branches and onto the lawn. I cooked porridge and she'd ask for Cream of Wheat. I'd make scrambled eggs and she would ask for a poached egg. I happily complied. We talked until she tired. Slowly she would find her way back to the bedroom to rest. I would sit in the garden and wait and wonder what the end would be like -- for both of us.
Being a caregiver is quite beyond the effort of simply being company. The load was greater than I expected and tenderness and attention take great effort. I began to weaken with the effort and grew resentful that the family was silent and absent -- their way of showing displeasure. As I stood in the dark silence of evening garden, sipping the day's last coffee, smoking a cigarette to calm myself, my neighbour would peer over the garden fence and invite me into his garden for a few minutes conversation and a beer.
"Where is your family?" he would ask. He would share insights of his mother's passing at home and assured me of my strength. I felt comforted.
In the second week, the walker was surrendered to a wheelchair. Support nurses began to visit each day. The local hospice came with support for me. I could finally sleep. The house began to change as furniture was moved to make way for the wheelchair and the meals became small. Her naps grew longer and more frequent. I sat in longer, deeper silence with my thoughts. I wondered at my future. I felt alone and unable.
There was no time for a job now. I asked for a leave but was told I was now "too unreliable" and they couldn't commit to my return. I left in anger and relief, but I was scared. I had no job.
There was support in the house now -- for mother and for me -- but still no family. At the end of the second week, mother lapsed badly. I called the family. An army of siblings arrived with partners in tow. I was displaced as if I were no more than staff. Mother regained and could talk. Tears were shed, help was offered. And then they all left.
In the third week the wheelchair too was surrendered, for only brief moments was mother out of bed. A hospital bed arrived, and oxygen. With each day, home slipped away. Meals became delicate, quiet and brief. My infringement of her dignity, the essential intimacy of patient and caregiver grew, as I helped her with her toilet and helped her to and from bed. She talked little and slept often. I brought a flower each day from the garden. Each was her favourite. The summer began to wane and I worked the garden to find some peace and sense. I slept in her displaced bed, next to the hospital bed. She slipped further away.
In the fourth week, the family arrived. The trials of the passed weeks were ignored. My older sister took over. She interceded with the doctor and nurses who visited. I was given instructions of what I should be doing. I was now told how to care for mother. I was hurt more deeply than I know and angered too. My desire to fulfill mother's last wish to me was usurped. I felt petty and guilty for my anger. Emotions boiled and all the while mother slipped further away, but we shared a nightly vigil.
I have worked in a hospital. I have seen dying and death. I have been dispassionate, but you cannot be so with family. Mother had guided me through the darkest parts of my transition, through the losses, the regrets and the doubts. She had been a constant in my life. That light was going out. Finally, her voice and perhaps thoughts were silenced.
Throughout, mother had declined painkillers. I don't know if she felt pain but certainly she wanted to be aware and awake as long as possible. My sister and I argued. "Leave her be!", I wanted to shout at my sister. Medication was given once and then rejected by mother by silent waves and pursed lips. Finally in a moment of clarity, mother accepted the nurse's suggestion of morphine. I knew with that that the end had come.
I stayed with her that night, each few hours administering a needle of morphine. It was not a long night, nor was it tiring. It was a night that seemed to take place all at once in my memory. I brushed her hair lightly not to disturb her sleep. Her breathing faded. I lay in the bed beside, without thoughts. At dawn I gave her a last needle. I knew that for me she was already gone. I woke my sister that she might share whatever last moments remained. Whatever last moment my sister needed with mother I wanted her to have. At 9:00 am the nurse came quietly out of the room and announced her passing. I didn't cry. I didn't feel sadness or regret. I felt relief that her struggle was over. I hoped that I had fulfilled her wish.
