The Mom Jar

Earlier this season Jen dedicated an episode to her Dad. Now it is her Mom’s turn. Fight on Linda. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: The Mom Jar
• 0:35 Ashes On The Shelf
• 1:44 The Real Diagnosis
• 3:19 Care Without Pity
• 4:51 Hopes, Procedures, And A Crisis
• 7:07 Recovery, Decline, And Final Fights
• 10:13 Vigil, Passing, And The Jar’s Weight
• 13:58 Credits And Listener Reminder

Transcript

Jen Coronado: 0:00

Hey everyone, earlier this season I shared with you an essay I wrote about my father who passed away this year. I have come to realize that I also have to share an essay I wrote about my mother when she passed away 17 years ago. And I say that because I am the child of divorced parents, and I know if I don't share this essay about my mom, I will be haunted, like only a good Catholic mother can haunt you. So thank you for your patience with me. And now I'd like to share with you a story about my mom called the Mom Jar. It's happened. My mother has moved in. It was something I had always anticipated, but it has happened so soon. We don't have much space, so I don't know how comfortable it will be. Will we fight the same fights we've always fought? Or will we find new and innovative ways to aggravate each other as only a mother and daughter can? I am certain she will hate my taste, and I personally know that I am not really happy with the outfit she is wearing. She sits on my bookcase next to my Kurt Vonnegut's, taking up room normally allotted to my catch twenty-two. I hope she knows is a privileged position. She has been gone seven years now, and all that remains is the dust, my memories, and her mom jar glinting all blue and gold in the lamplight. It makes my husband uncomfortable, this mom on the bookcase. Can't we put her in the closet? he asks. People don't want to be staring at your mom's cremation jar when we have them over to dinner. But I can't do that. Nobody puts a baby in the corner, and there's no way in hell I'm putting my mom in the closet. I will never hear the end of it. The dying part one. The dying was very different from her dying in the past. Her past instances of dying had been manifestations of her need to be loved and the intense bipolar disorder her parents' abuse had visited on her. Sometimes she was dying, sometimes it was my brother or I. Jason has leukemia, or Jen has skin cancer, or I have cancer and it's because you've always loved your father more than me. But this dying was different. It was the real kind that made her bones ache. It was the multiple myeloma kind that was treatable but not curable. And just in case you're wondering, treatable is bullshit. The treatment, at least in my experience, is often worse than the illness. But then I am biased because I know the truth. Regret number one? When my mom told me she was sick, I thought she was lying. Regret number two, she wasn't. When I finally drove up to see my mom, I expected our usual weekend of bickering and my nagging her about her diet of orange Milano cookies, seven up and cigarettes. Believe me, that was all there. But there was something more. She was weak. Her fight was still there, but it had this new scary dimension to it that even with her physical frailty made our arguments more intense. That element was terror. Her terror that she might die, and my terror because I knew she was going to. I want to step out of the timelight a bit to advise people who are caring for people with a catastrophic illness. Don't treat them like a victim. If I've learned anything about dealing with someone who is ill, I learned that through it all they are still people. Oftentimes when someone has cancer, we suddenly define them by their illness rather than acknowledging them as the person they have been their whole life. They are already losing control of their body. Don't rob them of their personal dignity. Let's file this under regret number three. The dying year was a long one. My brother visited, it was good. My mom rallied when my brother was around. There was no way she was going to disappoint her baby boy. I visited, it was tough. We would argue, she would pick on me, and I would nag her. Except for that one time. There was that one time when she was back in the hospital to treat an infection and tests, and she needed me, and she squeezed my hand. And when they took her to get her transfusion, though they wouldn't let me in, I stood outside the door to monitor the situation, and I heard her say, My son is a good boy, and my daughter is brilliant, and I am so proud of her. And then when I was home, she left me a voicemail that said, Just wanted to make sure you got home okay. I'm about to be discharged. Thanks for everything. Love you. This is Mom. I still have that voicemail. I still cry. The dying part, part two. Doctors can suck it. There are many miraculous innovations that have happened in medicine over the years. Penicillin, the cure for polio, and Botox, to name a few. Six months into my mom's illness, they offered her another miracle of medicinal innovation, the potential of a stem cell transplant, or as my mother called it, stem cell transplant crap. Now, don't mistake my mom's tone as cynical. She in fact was more hopeful than I'd seen her. She was afraid to be excited, and the process itself was brutal. Nonetheless, she was going to try for it. In order for her to find out if she was eligible, she needed a simple outpatient procedure, which involved sampling cells inside her aortic valve to see if she was in the process of amyloidosis. In simple terms, cancer can cause blood to congeal in your veins and organs, causing them to shut down. Fun, huh? If my mom was too far down that path, a stem cell transplant would be a no-go. I made plans to be there, but she insisted I stay home. I wasn't going to fight her. Regret number four. Why after 33 years did I decide to listen to my mom? Monday was the procedure. Monday I got a call from my stepfather. Jen, this is Dawn. There was an accident during the procedure, and your mom has gone into cardiac arrest. I kind of remember stumbling out of my office and saying, I'm a bad daughter. I need to go. I am a bad daughter. And the next day or two was a blur. My brother rushed to my mother's side as quickly as one can when money is an object. It was hard to see my mom in intensive care, oxygen attached to her nose, a large scar visible at her neckline. When she was awake, the surgeon came to apologize and said, This never happens. But that was a lie because it happened to my mom. She said, Oh, that's okay, you didn't mean it. But that was a lie too because it was not okay. It was the worst, most awful thing that could have happened. My brother, my husband, and I wandered the hospital for days. And my stepfather, who I barely knew, I always forget him. Oh, and my mom's sisters, the kind one and the narcissist. We got used to sanitizing as we walked into intensive care. We got used to hearing the other families cry. There was comfort in our mutual pain. I bought my mom a bunny from Starbucks. It was like when I was a child, and my mom would cry and sleep, and I would bring her my stuffed animals. I named it antiseptic. She thought that was funny. At least she did in my memory. When she finally moved from intensive care into a regular room, she started to get mad about her situation. There was a near miss when a nurse said, Okay, Linda, we're gonna give you morphine, and my brother and I jumped up at the same time. Our mom is fucking allergic to morphine, you idiot. She ran from the room, and my husband followed her and made her cry. It is so easy to lash out when you're in pain. It's such a sad part of the human condition. Regret number five. Nobody wants to be responsible for people who are dying, including me. Fast forward through the next few months, mom went home. She was healing from the open heart surgery, but as she healed, the cancer advanced and her kidneys began to fail. News flash if your kidneys start to fail, you are no longer eligible for stem cell therapy. Too weak won't last. Rest in peace. The Dying Part three. The last fight. Mom was back in the hospital, staph infection from the port in her chest that they were using for chemo. The gift of medicine keeps on giving. She was loopy on pain meds and frustrated with not being in control. She had to use the bathroom, it was too weak to go on her own. I called the nurse to help her, knowing that she doesn't want it to be me. The nurse tells her, hurry up, Linda. My mom starts to cry. I want to punch the world. Time to sleep, mommy. Get a little rest. Mom wakes up in a feisty take charge mood. My husband is down the hall. My stepfather, I always forget him, is at work or in another universe, hard to say. I need a cigarette. Mom's eyes are demon red. She is a woman possessed. Ma, there's no smoking on the hospital grounds. You just need to rest. Internal voice. For fuck's sake, she is dying. Give her a cigarette. I'm going to have a fucking cigarette. She struggles up from the bed and starts to stumble towards the door. I grab her IV, hoping it doesn't pull from her arm in a mixture of antibiotics and blood. Her IV does not have all terrain wheels, and she is heading for the hills. She makes it to the door and leans against the door jam, winded. Two nurses jump up from the station. Linda, you need to go back and lie down, nurse number one says. Nurse number two nods. I start to laugh. It's a nervous tick. I hate confrontation. My mom turns on me. Cancer, anger, fear, bipolar wrath, wrapped in Christmas paper. Get that smug look off your face. You think you're in charge. I am the mother. I will pause here with another bit of history. I loved my mom, and I was enamored of her as a child. Even when she disappeared, even when I told myself I don't have a mom anymore, even when she would re-emerge and disappear and re-emerge. But she was never the mom. I was. And she was breaking my heart. The nurses gently guide my mom back to bed. I wander down the hall and cry, and I call my brother and tell him mom will be discharged soon and I'm going home, and so I do. And I call her when I'm home. Yeah, right, she says. And so it goes. I'm home, and the call comes in. It's my stepfather. I always forget about him. Your mom had a stroke last night. She was so angry she couldn't have a cigarette. It's best you come. My bags aren't even unpacked, and I'm back on the road. I arrive. My mom is in a coma. She was awake a few hours before she couldn't speak, and the doctors told her there was nothing more to do but for her to go home and be comfortable. She weakly raised her left arm and flipped them off. It is the last indication of Linda. My mom was going to be good and goddamned if they were going to tell her when she was going to die and where. Another aside, my mom didn't want to go home and have my brother and I change her bedpans and watch her slip away. I love her for that. It was so brave. Thank you, Mama. My husband and I sleep in my mom's room. My brother is coming, but he's ill with bronchitis and he's coming tomorrow. I wake up every two minutes afraid she stopped breathing. The breathing is hard and belabored and gasping, and I whisper into her ear, Hold on, Mama, Jason is coming, just a little bit more. I coat her lips with water and Vaseline. Her lips are so dry. A young nurse's aide comes to draw my mom's blood, and I chase him away. He comes back with the doctor standing behind him, cowering. The doctor tells me they need to draw my mother's blood. He's stern and demanding. And I tell them, No, she is dying, and you know that you don't need her blood. Leave her in peace. I am a lioness, and my stepfather is there, and my brother is two hours away. Please, Mama, hold on. I'm so tired. And I look up and I see a change in my mother's face. I jump up, she is going, and I know it, and I say it. My husband and my stepfather surround her. The nurse, so crazy, grabs my hand and holds it against my mother, my mama, my ma's chest, and I can feel her heart stutter, and I want to run so badly, and I start laughing, and I say, Stop it, mom, stop it. I hate confrontation, and death is confronting me. The rest is a blur. Picking up my brother at the airport, the hardest thing of all. The relatives, the strangers, the funeral, but most of all the mom jar. It was so heavy when they handed it to me, I almost dropped it. My mom would have been appalled with the mess. And now she sits on my shelf and judges my shoes and critiques my hair and is loved even in her absence. Perhaps I will give her a cigarette. Thank you for listening to Everyone Is. Everyone Is is produced and edited by Chris Hawkinson. Executive producer is Aaron Dussaux. Music by Doug Infinite. Our logo and graphic design is by Harrison Parker, and I'm Jen Coronado. Everyone Is is a slightly disappointed productions production dropping every other Thursday. So make sure to rate and review and like and subscribe. Thanks for listening.