the world has changed

Mom died at around 5 a.m. this morning.

It has been amazing to see how strong the human body can be. She took no food since May 18th, and no water since May 19th. We honored her health care proxy and did not force anything on her - and, why? We knew she was dying of dementia/Parkinsons. She didn't. And, so she kept going on. At one point her lungs filled up (perversely, this is a reaction to dehydration) but they cleared with some medication that the hospice nurse recommended that we get. (yay Hospice - what a great help they were.) Her last couple days were gentle, she was taking shallow breaths and we think this morning they just stopped. She looked very much the same as she had when Greg checked on her this morning and found that she was no longer breathing. Calm, no pain. Again, yay Hospice.

I'm a whirlstorm of emotion. i did not have what i would consider a good relationship with this woman. she was pretty unhappy, chronically dissatisfied - i remember one week in high school that started with her bitching at me because I was not at home much, so i stayed home and the week ended with her bitching at me for being home too much. This on top of 5+ years of constant criticism and verbal abuse. And she never asked me why I moved 3,000 miles away.

So, to the giver of my life and shredder of my self esteem and giver of emotional pain - farewell. Hope you have a better life next time. Hope you learned what you needed to, this time. Hope you are finally happy and at peace.