Mor Mor

At about 1am this morning my Mor Mor died.

We went to visit her a week ago Thursday, a difficult trip in many respects. I had only gotten two hours sleep (a little less, actually) when I got the call from my dad to head downtown to help pick up the rental car. It had been a while since we've all been piled in together in a car. I mostly faux annoyed my youngest brother with "interesting" points about Kame Rider- this was actually pretty fun and funny, though you may have had to be there. I really kept it going all day, it was impressive, trust me.

We drove down to the hospital in Cobourg.

Mor Mor had been suffering from dimentia, it's been about two years since I could convincingly state "yes, we've talked, me to her, her to me. We've understood each other." She took a couple of hard falls in the years past, as good as any place to start having cognitive problems. She went from 60 to 0 after retiring from Girl Guides, delivering War Cry's (Salvation Army newspaper), and visiting others. People NEED those kind of mental exercises. She and my grandpa were forced to move out of the home they had had for as long as I had known them, into an apartment complex that had some caregiving services, mostly because Mor Mor couldn't navigate the stairs in their home any more, though there were other reasons as well. Hearing problems were a consistent issue, the resultant isolation couldn't have helped things. And of course she got much worse after the shock of my mom, her middle child, dying.

We drove down to the hospital in Cobourg with the understanding that this would be the last time we'd see her alive.

She wasn't eating anymore, she likely couldn't swallow even if she wanted to eat. They decided it was time, and removed the intravenous.. what? Glucose? The alternate food solution. Her breaths were relatively shallow.

What was crazy about it is when most everyone left and I held her hand for a long time, she gripped back the whole time with a strength that would surprise you. Every now and again she'd regain some life in her eyes, see around that there was some kind of presence there, and she smiled at us. There was life there! It seemed so arbitrary to say that this was it, she's on the ropes, kid.

The person who was Mor Mor to me was gone long before this morning. If she recognized Grandpa up to the end then that is nothing less than a blessing to him, and a balm to her. But don't let my regrets fool you, just as I need to not trick myself. These last few years she was scared a lot of the time, she didn't know where she was, what was happening to her, and who these strangers (caregivers) around her were. There's no question that she was suffering for too much time.

I scare myself sometimes, imagining what it would be like, walking down some random street and just forgetting everything. What is this place? How do I get home? Where is it safe?

That night last week, dad drove a bunch of the way home, but was clearly tired out and having trouble. I switched in for the rest of the trip- though I couldn't have been that much less tired! Fortunately, I was excited by the prospect of driving, since I hadn't done it in months. That and a lot of head shaking (to wake up I mean) got us home.

I'm told the funeral will be either Monday or Tuesday.