A Conversation with Elizabeth
1998
Responding

From:          Elizabeth  
To:            LMixson@PEC.com
Sent:          Saturday, May 30, 1998 3:54 PM
Subject:       Responding
 
I'm glad you wrote something and decided to not worry about what to say.  I left work at 11:00 a.m.  From what I understand mother died at 8:00 a.m. (EST) that day, Friday.  You know how day after day I have been in a lull in the library, but it seemed that immediately after I got the message, the place started swarming with people, wanting research.  I was very struck by the insensitivity of some of the people, as I had just heard and I was sitting at my desk obviously crying and most of them (not all) acted as if it was "business as usual."  I wrapped up as quickly as I could and got out, taking a few minutes to e-mail you and my former counselor, who I really no longer see.  I also called one or two people here in town.
 
As best as I can determine, it was unexpected, unanticipated, and without warning.  Apparently my mother woke up lethargic on Thursday morning and never seemed to get out of it during the day.  The nursing home decided to send her to the hospital for observation, but without any real reason.  Despite my mother's AZ and osteoporosis, she was basically, organ-wise in good shape, and actually expected to live quite some time yet.  However, Thurs. night she began to worsen.  Apparently my sister was called in, and from what a nurse told me she stayed until 3:00 a.m. Friday, at which point they told her to go home and come back.  As she began to leave, the hospital then said, "No, you better not go."  So she stayed.  Apparently just before 8 my sister started to leave the room to call her husband, but the nurse (?) told her she best not leave.  From what my sister-in-law says (I haven't talked with my sister), my sister is very shaken up by the fact that she was there when mother died, and watched her die.  The people at the residential care facility were very shocked as well, because it was unexpected. 
 
I've cried an enormous amount, but it comes and goes.  In some ways I am absent the feelings of "mother" which might have made for a deeper feeling of loss, but on the other hand my many conflicted emotions create their own turmoil.  I have felt a great deal of anger at my sister, because I don't know she sustained the "caring" stance while simultaneously blatantly denying my mother's wishes regarding my receiving her home.  My sister-in-law (from whom my brother is divorced) sort of indicated my sister wanted me to call her, because she was so devastated.  I simply cannot.  She made all the choices, many of which were deliberately made to exclude me from any position of advice or authority in my mother's care (she informed the nursing home that ANY time I visited she was to be immediately notified, which I thought was a violation of my personal rights).  Anyway, anger and grief are intertwined. 
 
Friday night I went out with a friend to sit and have coffee in a quiet place.  She talked somewhat about the loss of her mother, and I expressed my feelings of my sister's hypocrisy.  Later I came home and talked with my sister-in-law for another two hours.  There apparently is to be no service.  I knew my mother had specified cremation for many years (since when I was a kid), and my sister-in-law said my mother wanted her ashes scattered on Sanibel Island, her favorite spot in Florida. 
 
I started thinking of the relationship with my mother as a zipper that was off track, from the beginning, but a little bit, in the last few years, there was a more "on track" period--nothing earth shattering, but more so than not.  Each visit I had with her was confirmatory of a good place between us, or at least I hope it was.  Who is to know that if I would have had one last visit, that visit might have left a different impression, through no fault of her own, but through the whimsy of her disease.  Any dreams I had of a major correction in our relationship were lost when she was put in the home.  The one thing I wanted to do more than anything was take her back to visit England and have her show me the towns where she grew up, although I imagine there would have really been changes. 
 
Anyway, thanks for writing because the "connection" is important.  If you're wondering, I cried most of Friday night, and didn't sleep, but I got so stir crazy in the apartment, I finally drove out, with the thought to get some bread and tomatoes from the fruit stand, and also check on my grade in Domestic Relations at the law library.  While here I found that might internet account is FINALLY working, so I checked and found your message.  I am so glad you made time to write, because a VOID would have felt awful.  My therapist responded briefly. 
 
INCIDENTALLY, I'M SURE YOU WERE TOLD, BUT JULIE SHOULD NOT FLY FOR QUITE SOME TIME, FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND, AT LEAST UNTIL THE BUBBLE IS ABSORBED OR DOES WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO DO.  I SEEM TO RECALL YOU HAD RESERVATIONS TO GO TO FLORIDA FOR A REUNION. 
 
I may go in Monday only for a little while.  I checked and the hospital grants 16 hours of bereavement time.  I used about five hours Friday (not knowing I had it).  I may work sort of half days, based on how I feel, for a day or two.  Apparently there will be no need for me to go down there.  Elizabeth

What a way to end the month, I felt really bad for her losing her mother like that, then again from what she had told me she had lost her mother sometime ago due to Alzheimer’s. I wanted to comfort her, say the right words, but I didn’t know the words to say. What if she had gone to see her mother and her mother didn’t recognize her at all, she would have felt bad for days afterwards, but would that visit make her feel any better now that her mother had passed? Then again perhaps her mother might have had a moment of lucidness, as I understand Alzheimer’s patients do, and recognized Elizabeth, and gained great comfort in seeing Elizabeth one last time.  I was just a disembodied presence inside the computer that she typed on every day.  I could not comfort her.
 
To visit or not to visit someone in their final days, that is the question that I too would be faced with in coming years.

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