I, too, Pam,
think it's relevant that you and I were alone with our mothers when each died and share the experience of having been overwhelmed by the image of our dead mothers, despite the image not being "bad", as you say. I'm so glad you commented. I've been wondering if others have had this experience.
    I spent some time thinking about this, today, especially the relevance of being alone with the dying/dead and the power of this isolation to burn images into the mind of the witness. My mother is one of three dead I've seen, one at a wake, one in the bed in which he died some hours after his death, but my mother is the only person I've watched die. I viewed both of the other two with other people who were much closer to each person than I. I think, had there been others around when my mother died, my attention would have been diffused throughout the room, watching others and their reactions, as well as watching my mother, and this would probably have circumvented the etching of an image of my mother, any image of her, actually, directly onto my retina. I can't be sure about this, though. Besides your experience, I know of one other in which the image of a dead person attached itself indelibly to the memory of someone: One of my sisters. She saw my father after he died. She was not alone, she was with my mother. She also was not attending when he died (nor, for that matter, was my mother). She was so surprised and moved by his death mask, which was a "bewildered" expression, though, that she was compelled to involuntarily and serially recall it long after his death.
    If anyone else reading these journals has had striking experiences regarding images of the dead, I'd love to hear from you, particularly in comments, if you're amenable to having the world know about your experience. Feel free to comment anonymously.

    Today I decided to watch some of the movies I'd recorded with the DVR from television with the idea that Mom and I would be watching them later. One of those was Dirty Pictures. We had gotten in on the credits of this movie while we were tuning in to watch another. The credits include a video montage sequence of some of Mapplethorpe's photographs. Mom and I found the photos, as well as the narration about defense of the first amendment versus control of what society is allowed to view, interesting. While the credits ran I quickly surfed play times and queued up the next showing for recording. We didn't get around to watching the movie together before Mom died.
    Today, as the credits were running after I viewed the film, I couldn't help but imagine how Mom would have reacted to the movie. Overall I think she would have found it interesting, although I have no idea what her reaction to some of the photographs would have been. I suspect, during the jury sequences and some of the commentary in the movie, we would have been pausing it to discuss various aspects of the trial and the issue. She likely would not have been able to focus on many of Mapplethorpe's photos, as the montage sequence technique was used throughout the movie. She may have asked me to describe some of the more confusing images. I would have, although the photographs on trial were verbally well described during the trial. I enjoyed, immensely, imagining what some of her physical and verbal reactions to the dialogue, especially the descriptions of the images, would have been.
    This meditation jump started me into a review of her death; not so uncommon, right now. Just about anything, in "the right light", can do this. I realized, today, that, although I was with her, in touch with her, even, right up to her last breath, because I think she wasn't aware that she was dying, or, at least, was in fighting mode against death, in one very important sense I was not with her: I wasn't overtly encouraging her to continue. I do remember telling her that it was her choice. But my assumption, in the last twenty or so minutes of her life, was that she was dying, maybe not as soon as she did, but, you know, closer than I had previously considered. I didn't realize this, before. I wonder, now, how she was reacting to me assuming her death was fairly imminent while she wasn't. Knowing my mother's character, I don't think she felt betrayed. I imagine, if her thoughts, which were probably sub-lingual, at that time, could have been put into words, they would have been something like: "Well, I guess I'll be showing her a thing or two!" Makes me smile to imagine this.
    Still, I wonder, now, would it have been "better", that is, a better death for her (as, I'm sure, if she hadn't died that morning, her death was only hours or days away) and a slightly longer life, which, I think, she would have considered "good", if I'd been actively coaching her to remain alive, rather than explaining the events that would be taking place at 0800 that morning to her if she was still alive, then giving her a choice and attending her noncommittally? I wonder if she may have gotten the idea that I was encouraging her to die. I can't say that I was, but, knowing her character as well as I do, as well as I did during those last twenty minutes of her life, I wonder if she was unpleasantly surprised that, instead of murmuring to her that "we'll get through this and come out on the other side," as I often had when attending her through other health crises, I was, instead, presupposing her death and not hiding my presupposition. Funny, there I was, giving her "permission" to die, giving this permission to the woman who had no interest in dying! No, I can't really say I was working with her.
    Conversely, her labor to breathe during that last hour of her life was of a distinctly different character than I'd ever previously witnessed. The labor never let up and it increased, breath by breath. Nothing that we had in the house was capable of allaying it, although we had addressed the pain. It wasn't agonizing to watch, as, for instance, watching her sink from the bed and double over in pain a few days before had been agonizing to watch. It was, rather, awe-some, or, perhaps, more to the point, awe-full to witness. I'm sure, as well, that the reason I unconsciously took to breathing with her, in her exact rhythm, was in order to help her take another breath, and another, and one more. When she stopped breathing, I stopped, waiting for her to give "us" the signal to pull, then push, more air through her lungs.
    It isn't the fact that I talked periodically throughout the night preceding her death as though I was wondering if she was close to death, saying things to her that were appropriate to say at this time, versus the day before. Nothing I said to her was odd, in the context of our relationship...in fact, over the last few years she became annoyed with the number of times I would ask her if she felt as though she was dying and reminisce about our life together, "as though you expect me to up and die this very minute!" It wasn't, even, that, after informing her of the situation regarding medication, and Hospice's arrival, and what she might be facing if she was still alive when the Hospice Cadre arrived, that I was expecting her to die. I wasn't. But, I knew it was coming. Even as I "helped" her breathe, I knew something to which she was not yet admitting, that she would be dying "soon". In that one small way, I betrayed my mother's character, my mother's belief in herself and in life. That's not what caused her death, I'm sure...nor, I think, did it have much to do with the timing. I just wonder, if I'd been actively coaching her to continue breathing, rather than noncommittally breathing with her and leaving the Final Decision up to her, would she have enjoyed a better death, from her point of view? Or, would active coaching toward staying alive a little longer have been more annoying than what I was doing?
    Ah, well, obviously, there's no definitive answer to this. Not now, anyway. I don't expect this glitch to be difficult with which to live. I have no regrets. I did what I felt was necessary, what felt right, as did she. She died smack dab in the middle of our very active, in-the-moment-and-in-the-years love for one another. No better place to be when one is dying, I think.
    Later.
- posted by Gail Rae @ 15:02   email  this post