Rest in peace, mom.

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Holly and I were in Middlefield at an Amish store when she received the call about her mom.  Hospice had notified her dad that she had taken a turn for the worst overnight and that she may die later that evening, but surely in the next two days.  Tears sprung to her eyes.  The day had finally come.

Holly’s mom had been suffering with Alzheimer’s for several years, but had been slipping down much more quickly since entering the nursing home this past September.  No one who cared about her wanted her to go on this way and we had been praying for a quick and painless ending.  When we arrived at the home to find her taking labored breaths, we knew it probably wouldn’t be two days.  We spent the next two hours there with her, but observing no change.  Holly had a turkey in the refrigerator at home for my birthday dinner.  The girls were on their way home…they were going to surprise me for my birthday…and Holly wanted to make the 10-minute drive to put the turkey in the oven.  We left her father and brother with her mom and went home.

We returned to the nursing home two hours later only to find that she had died 5 minutes earlier.  Holly’s brother said she just stopped breathing and went quite peacefully on her final journey. 

Holly’s mom had had a powerful influence on my life in many different ways.  First, she had destroyed the image of the invasive, obnoxious mother-in-law.  We had always gotten along so well and she had never made me feel like anything but another son.  Second, she had been a wonderful, caring mother and wife and had passed all these qualities on to her daughter.  I had benefited from that example for close to forty years.  Finally, there was her goodness, honesty, loyalty and spirituality; things I had observed and of which I’d been the beneficiary.  I would like to think that I had also incorporated a measure of these qualities into my own life because of her influence.  She was an example for how to live a life and I had been fortunate to witness it first-hand.

I did not exercise.  When we returned from the nursing home with Holly’s dad, brother and all the kids. Holly went into super mom mode, as she often has throughout my life with her.  She put the finishing touches on an amazing turkey dinner with many of the trimmings while the kids, her brother, father and I shared stories and comforted one another for the loss we’d experienced.  She did all that she could to make my birthday special when her mom had just died. It was classic Holly…putting the need of others in front of her own...the mirror of her mentor and mother, Irene Heckler, a very special and loving woman I will never forget.