Code Blue by JonnyQuest

JONNYQUEST'S BLOG

JonnyQuest

Code Blue
Thursday, January 11, 2007

Continued from http://www.fireflyfans.net/showblog.asp?b=5870

Two weeks after my 15th birthday my mother got the flu. She slept a lot. She didn’t go in to work on Friday and was sick all weekend long. Sunday night I woke her for her favorite show. She was too sick to watch. I set the alarm early and went to bed. When I got up the next morning, I woke her up to see how she was, no real change. I called my grandparents who would make the trek to our house and see to her while I got myself ready for school and marched out the door into the snow, quietly snickering to myself about “when I was a kid I walked five miles to school in the snow.” When I got home my mother was in the hospital. Three hours later, I found her not breathing, lips blue as we had stepped out of the room for just a little break. Another two hours and they stabilized her on a respirator.

She spent the next five days in a coma. Ours was a small hospital and didn’t have a brain scan machine (EEG) and she couldn’t be moved so we had to wait for the machine to be brought in. She would never wake from the coma. Could never wake. So my grandparents had their life taken away from them. After all they had endured. After all my mother had lived through, it was all over now. So while I had no legal standing, no authority by any definition. All eyes turned toward me to see what should be done. The laws concerning advanced directives were still years from being formulated let alone enacted. She could live like she was indefinitely with no hope of recovery, or they could let her die. We could let her die. I could let her die. That’s what they wanted to know from me. What did I want to do. I was fifteen years old. And two weeks.

There really was no decision in my mind, just like there was no activity in hers. Turn off the machines. My great uncle went in with the medical staff to be an observer. He later wrote about the experience which helped me greatly. As I was the only composed one left, I went to tell my great aunt, who was like a sister to my mother in many ways, that my mother was no more. I didn’t have to say anything.

Next came the funeral arrangements and all the bullshit that goes along with that. In some ways it is a good thing that grief leaves you in a fog during these times so that the bullshit smell doesn’t overwhelm you. Of course I made all the decisions. And then, life resumed. A colorless, dull existence carried us along for years.

Of course things got better and you now see the happy go lucky quipster before you now. I am saddened that so much of my memories about my mother surround the last week of her life, overshadowing everything else that she was. Remarkable, loving and lovely.

So, I look back on my own life now knowing that (a few months hence) everything that I have to look forward to is something that my mother never had a chance to see. She’d be 79 now and that does not compute with the images I have of her in my head. Eternally younger than 50. Forevermore, younger than me.

COMMENTS

Sunday, January 14, 2007 4:52 PM

BLUEEYEDBRIGADIER

*hugs JonnyQuest solidly*

While I still have my mother - and I have to say my relationship with her has been eerily similiar to yours, even if my dad's alive and still married to her - I know what it's like to be in your situation.

My maternal grandmother was pretty much my only grandmother growing up. My dad's mom - my Nana - was alive until I was about 7, but she lived in the "old country" (Wales, in this case ;D) and I only ever met her twice. My grandma was there till I was almost 10 and my family lived with her and my grandpa, so I got to see them regularly.

Two days before Christmas 1991, my grandpa went and tried to wake my grandma up since she had seemingly slept in (something completely unlike her). Neither he nor either of my parents could rouse, as she was (as we later learned) in a coma. She never recovered...only saw her the once in the hospital before she passed away; even know, I can recall that vist...maybe not perfectly, but it's definitely a strong memory. At the time, I felt like I was the only one capable of functioning correctly, other than my dad...the truth didn't hit me until we finally buried her the following April/May.

Guess I can only say this: your mom would be mighty proud of you, JonnyQuest. Much as I can, I offer my deepest sympathies in that I can't imagine what it would be like to not have my mom around...but I doubt it's rainbows and puppies.

BEB

Friday, January 12, 2007 12:53 PM

ENGINEANGEL

i agree with albatross. hugs are all i can give, but give them I will. *hugs you tight* you're mother sounded like an extraordinary woman.

Thursday, January 11, 2007 4:46 PM

JONNYQUEST

Oath,
You have great empathy for one who says he's still searching. I hope you find what you seek. As to my mother's memory, the rest is all there, intact, but it hides a lot. And regarding the patterns I can say with conviction that no two deaths are alike, as no two lives are alike.

LA29,
*Hugs, tightly*

Thursday, January 11, 2007 12:55 PM

LITTLEALBATROSS29

JQ - I do know that your mother would have been very proud of the man you've become..I'm sorry that she was taken from you when you were so young. *hugs*

Thursday, January 11, 2007 12:45 PM

OATH

Don't have your mother remain in your memory as someone denied what she deserves, her life cut short, but as a woman who felt joy in seeing her son with straight A's, a woman who did all she could for you and loved you like no other, and a woman with a family that treasured her and always will, that stuck together through years of hardship.

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