I am the daughter

[not like the movies]

We moved mom to a nursing home for rehab yesterday. We are hoping to get her back home with dad soon. I am utterly amazed at her resilience.
I am reluctant to share this story but I feel like I need to do so.  I won't be able to accurately describe with words this event and wonder why try. I think I need to do so for me.
Mom was very ill and I believe she was in a phase of passing this life. She had been not responding or talking for a few days. Last Saturday my husband and I were in the hospital room with my mom. It was early evening. It was quiet, had been quiet for hours. My mother awakened and began to look around the room. Not at us directly. It appeared as she was looking far off into some horizon. Her eyes were open wide and she slowly became full of energy. It was as if someone flipped a switch on her. She looked over to me and asked me to start the introductions. My husband and I looked at one another with confusion. I asked her what introductions. She said you know. I asked her who was there. Mom started out saying, "hi I am Dorothy and I am 85yrs old and I can't believe I am 85". She said she had been married for 67 years and told how many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren they had. She was addressing people from the past. Names I had not heard of for years. Names I remembered from my childhood.  All the people were deceased and all the events she mentioned had long since passed. My mother was not on any drugs. My mother is a very quiet person. This was so far from her normal personality it was like it wasn't even her but yet it was her. I heard here talk more in those hours than I had heard her talk for a very long time. I heard stories and details of events I had never heard. It was as if a movie of her life was playing that only she could see. It was as if she were narrating it. Her events were descriptive and very detailed.  She described union station when she picked my dad up after the war. Angel Stadium and a particular baseball game she had been at. She was "taking with her girlfriends" about their dancing evenings WWII servicemen at the Hollywood Platinum. Their days at the ocean on Balboa Island. Dogs she had as a child. Spats with her little sister. She spoke of her father's patience. She talked of a few relatives that had been mean and cold to her. Meals she remembered as a child at her grandmother's home. Christmas events were a big theme and how she loved those times when family was together. She spoke of particular incidents that happened at family reunion picnic at Griffith Park. She asked why my father hadn't been invited and how disappointed he was going to be. The stories went on for several hours. My husband and I could not even speak to each other as we were so astonished at what was going on. I am so glad my husband was there with me. I am afraid people would think I was crazy if I discussed what went on. At 10:30pm they gave my mother a sedative so she could rest. She had not had a sedate at all since she was admitted. She was doing so poorly there was never a need for one. Driving home my husband and I didn't talk. When we got into bed we just looked at each other and said "what the heck was that"! Both of us were trying to process what had just taken place. I realized later it was a gift of some kind.

[Rose799]

What a gift, indeed, NLTM.  You're so fortunate to have been present with her.  I got goosebumps...

[lancaster lady]

It's amazing . It's all about what you think and believe of the after life .Before my brother died he saw my mother frequently and held conversations with her . I believe there is life after death ,and we are reunited with our loved ones ,and they come to.collect us when our time is up. Sounds as if your mom was having a.reunion...good times .

[Pooh]

That truly was a gift and I agree with LL, your Mom was having a reunion with loved ones.  I'm sure it was very overwhelming for you, but how wonderful to be able to hear all that so you have her memories within you. I too and a firm believer that we achieve clarity when we most need it. 

My Grandpa and I were close my entire life.  He told me story after story my entire life.  When even remained best buds into my mid 20's until he fell ill at 94. A couple of weeks before he passed, I was sitting vigilant by his side and touching his hand.  He had been sleeping for 23 hours a day by then and when he was awake, he was not lucid.  All of a sudden, he opened his eyes and smiled at me and starting talking and talking.  The hand I was holding he pulled it up with mine and said, "Isn't that an ugly pinkie?"  It was all crooked and knarled and I always assumed he had broke it during work.  "I broke that pinkie playing baseball, when I was 20.  I was on the first organized minor league baseball team.  They called them farm teams then and I played out of Cleveland, TN and we were called the Cleveland Knights.  I played 2nd base and the ball hit a rock and bounced up and broke my pinkie in two places."

I sat there in shock as I had never heard about him playing minor league baseball.  He went on and on, telling me the players names, positions, games and other teams they had played, then told me he only played for 1 year because he met my grandmother and wanted to get married.  This went on for about 30 minutes and he went back to sleep.  I went out to tell my Mom and she said she never knew that about that either. 

I will always count that as a special time between he and I.  I learned something about him that no one knew and I cherish that memory and always will.  Guess where I live now?  It is where my DH lived and where I now live and work.  When I met my DH, two things about knocked me over.  He lived in Cleveland, TN and his middle name is the same as my Grandma's middle name.  Although I had lost both of them, I felt like they had sent him to me with their blessings.  Life has a way of making you sit up and take notice.