What's Worse Than Being a Caregiver?

A friend of mine called me from her mother’s bedside.

Her mother was dying. In-patient hospice. It wouldn’t be long.

My heart ached. I knew her mother. I could hear the sound of her voice in my head.

She was 78 years old. Not that old, but cancer doesn’t care–young, old.

Everyone had flown on to say their good byes. The chaplain had prayed, and everyone had gathered for a hymn.

It was excruciating at this point.

“I don’t know what she’s waiting for,” my friend said.

I reassured her that our bodies and our spirits aren’t all on the same time clock–not quite in sync.

She sounded exhausted. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually exhausted.

Her mother’s cancer had been slow and hadn’t caused the fervor of everyone rallying to her bedside. My mother’s Alzheimer’s created a different scenario for my family, but there were similarities. Familiy and friends tend to avoid both of these diseases.

She and her husband had “managed.”

I told my friend that telling your loved one it’s okay to go, that you’ll be okay, is a good thing to do.

People hang onto this life for others. Or that’s what they tell themselves.

I also told her that after we had all said goodbye to my mother that I didn’t try to wake her, try to stir her. I was quiet, soothing, and sent everyone else home. It felt cruel to say goodbye and then keep pulling at her as she was driving away.

I had to let her go. Be quiet, Be still. Let her pass.

***

My friend called me the next day. Her mom passed away two hours later–when it was quiet.

My friend sounded like a girl who had lost her mother, and I longed to hold her in my arms.