The last card for my Mom

My mother died last week shortly after Moth­er’s Day. Her death was sud­den but peace­ful; as hoped, in her own home while her fam­ily was sleep­ing.

We knew she was in decline, but few knew the end was so near.

She had been bat­tling COPD for sev­eral years, the price for decades of heavy smok­ing. An intel­li­gent woman, Mom was well aware of the dan­gers of tobacco, but she was a prod­uct of her times.

Like other women who came of age after World War II, smok­ing was an inte­gral part of her lifestyle, even in preg­nancy. She did not man­age to over­come the nico­tine addic­tion until she had retired, when she had time to invest in a stop smok­ing pro­gram with skilled med­ical sup­port and coun­sel­ing resources. Mul­ti­ple ear­lier attempts to stop smok­ing had failed.

The Wisdom of Carpe Diem

Mom had 7 chil­dren, half of whom live not far from her home. The rest of us spend hun­dreds of dol­lars and fly for hours when­ever we “go home,” so we don’t see our par­ents or extended fam­ily as often we’d like.

Sadly, as a “non-local,” I was not there on Moth­er’s Day — but could have been. I had already flown from Seat­tle to Boston to visit my par­ents, and deal with main­te­nance issues at a sec­ond home 120 miles away. I had intended to give Mom this card in per­son, rather than mail it as per usual, but she died before I could do so. Mom had hoped to see me later that week, when she’d regained her energy after a large fam­ily party with her local chil­dren and grand­chil­dren.

Now this card has become a sym­bol of the unin­tended but painful con­se­quences of mov­ing away from home.

My hus­band was quite sick over Moth­er’s Day week­end; I opted to stay and care for him rather than drive 120 miles to see Mom, believ­ing I’d see her a few days later. Given 20–20 hind­sight, I would have made a dif­fer­ent choice. Instead I chose to care for my hus­band, assum­ing I’d see my folks a few days later. Who would have guessed that Mom would die Tues­day night (even her doc­tor was sur­prised).

There’s a les­son here: if you have a loved one who’s fight­ing a ter­mi­nal dis­ease, call or visit them while you still can, even when it’s not con­ve­nient. Find ways to work around cal­en­dar issues or con­flict­ing pri­or­i­ties. There are no emails or phone calls in Heaven…

Fam­ily is pre­cious, and your time together is finite. Enjoy fam­ily and friends while you can.

As I learned the hard way, deci­sions that seem ratio­nally cor­rect can prove to be emo­tion­ally wrong. Seize the moment — carpe diem.