This is Chapter 2 in the Grief Memoir. Read Chapter 1 here.
After leaving my mom at the end of September 2019, life seemed to go back to normal and the fall passed by quickly. Mom’s radiation went well, family and friends helped her go to appointments, brought food and visited her. My family went on our annual Friendsgiving vacation with our Army friends. My mom slowly went back to work part-time after radiation, and continued to be the same. I could tell she was tired but for the most part I wasn’t too worried.
Our family flew out to Phoenix for Christmas to spend time together for the holidays. Mom was not as well as I had thought. She seemed aloof and exhausted. I just wanted to shake her out of her funk. “Mom, you’re alive! Your grandchildren are there! It is Christmas!”
We did some shopping and made some of our favorite foods that holiday season, but instead of mom being the primary cook, she was the one assisting me and my husband. I don’t know what I expected but it was for her to be slightly more like herself.
Her world had been shaken, so of course she wasn’t herself. But selfishly as her daughter, I didn’t want to believe that. I wanted my mom back.
By January 2020 it was clear that she was in more than a funk. I flew out in early February to go to doctor’s appointments with her and see if we could get her additional support. Or at the very least someone to talk to. During her first cancer fight, she didn’t love group therapy – and who can blame her? Many of the folks in her group did not win their fight.
The doctors listened and she was glad to see me, but I was hoping for more options or information. At least they were tracking how she was doing. The best part of the trip was that I got to spend my birthday with her, eating a delicious meal and a cake from a favorite local bakery.
I had plans to return in a few months but COVID hit. With flights at a halt and life confined to our homes, all I could do was call and FaceTime frequently. Mom thrived going places and had returned to her office prior to the shutdown, and while her team did video calls, she missed her work. She missed her desk littered with fun gadgets to play with, coworkers who would pop in and say hi, the conversations that you can only have when in a space together. A neighbor made her and my dad masks and I got silly selfies from them as they tried them on. Mom still seemed to be status quo; no major changes in her health beyond the same feeling of hopelessness we all felt being stuck at home. But overall, she seemed okay.
While I was thinking about and talking to my mom often, my focus was on working with my kids at home instead of daycare. We were lucky that James was also working from home – but there was a lot of noise in the house that I wasn’t used to, making it stressful for me. Like everyone else we had to find our rhythm, all while dealing with wondering when life would be normal again.
Eventually, daycare opened back up to non-essential personnel (like us) and we started doing trips here and there around Kentucky. But flying home still seemed like a lot, and not worth potentially risking my parents, both at high-risk, of getting sick.
Despite being states away, I was keeping track of all of my mom’s healthcare needs. I was helping set up and manage her online pharmacy account; tracking appointments; calling into some of those appointments; getting updates from dad, friends, and family alike; and relaying updates to everyone else.
It was a lot and I finally said that I need help – for me. So I found a local therapist to help me manage the stress of life – parenting, caregiving, work, the whole nine yards. I found ways to help me – from journaling to baking bread to taking breaks. But the biggest help that I got was from a group that I joined for other caregivers. I had learned about Gilda’s Club on a rare date night pre-COVID – they were fundraising at a local restaurant after I’d returned from Arizona – and I remembered it. They had group meetings for caregivers and I signed up for my first one.
My weekly call with other caregivers and a social worker allowed me to connect with others helping a cancer patient. Most were the spouses of their loved ones, but we all related to the trials of caregiving. It was a weekly reprieve for me and much-needed connection to others going through similar things. The group became a great sounding board and venting space for others going through something similar.
As summer turned to fall, it was clear my mom needed more help. I set up local meals for mom and dad, as mom was too tired to cook and dad was not the chef of the house. They needed hearty home-cooked meals, not the takeout they had started to rely on. But I still had my blinders on – I didn’t want to believe that mom would get worse again. I knew in the back of my head that she would or could, but I didn’t want to accept that.
Come November 2020, it was clear that things were truly getting worse, and fast. My aunt called to tell me that it took my mom more than four hours to drive to their house, twice as long as it should take. My mom had lost a ton of weight and slept the majority of the weekend. It was clear that mom was not okay. So, I booked a trip home. Again, James said, “Go. I’ve got this.”
I again boarded a flight on my own but this time with the intention of being back the following week, in time for our annual Friendsgiving. Shortly after arriving in Phoenix my dad was exposed to COVID. We had no idea if he or any of us would end up sick. This was still the time when you’d stay home for 5-7 days to ensure that you didn’t have the virus, so those doctor’s appointments? Virtual. Staying only one week trip to Arizona? Not quite.
During that trip it became clear that mom was on the decline. She spent a lot of time sleeping. She couldn’t do things as well as in the past. She was slower. She was thinner. Much thinner. I pushed the worst thoughts of mine to the back of my head – it was time to cook some hearty food and check in on her treatment, that’s all. She’d get better. She was 62 and in great health minus the cancer; she could fight it.
As I cooked and hunkered down trying to isolate from my dad, I learned that one of our friends had COVID and we needed to cancel our Friendsgiving trip. Daycare was also on the verge of closing again to non-essential personnel due to COVID surge. The decisions we made in the coming days were some of the hardest but best that we did. It was time to all be together for a while, even if it took some Herculean efforts to get there.
Come back every Wednesday to walk this journey with Jessica Hall as part of the MilSpouse Memoirs, stories brought to you in chapters, one week at a time.