My mother, Sue Alexander, passed away last Tuesday, October 30. She was 86 years old. She had been confined to the local nursing home for a couple of years and her quality of life slowly became worse and worse.
Mom had lost Dad in February, 2004, and a son, Gary (my brother) four months later. Whether these events really had an accelerating effect on Mom's mental decline, we don't know but it sure seemed like it. Dementia and Alzheimers are insidious diseases and Mom's mental condition became worse each time we saw her. At any rate, she decided on her own a couple of years ago to go to the nursing home.
As her situation deteriorated, she had several accidents, culminating with a broken hip about six months ago. All of the accidents took a toll on her physical health while the dementia kept on in its march toward darkness. The Hospice people were called in about three months ago to supplement the care the nursing home was providing.
A couple of weeks ago, Louise and I took the motor home to Atlanta, picked up the kids, and then drove up into the Smokey Mountains in North Carolina. We had probably had the motor home set up for 30 minutes when my cell phone rang. It was the hospice people telling me that Mom was not doing well and would not be around much longer.
It took us a hard two and one half days to get back to Mannford. By the time we got back, however, Mom had had a slight recovery and was doing better. We really thought that she might have escaped the inevitable for a while longer. Last weekend, October 27 and 28, she really began to slip, though.
On Tuesday, Louise and I were in Mom's room at the nursing home and Mom was struggling with her heart rate and her respiration. The hospice nurse, Tinnie, left the room for a minute and Mom just quit breathing. Whle Louise was double checking her, I went to find Tinnie. When she came back into the room and was taking Mom's pulse, she looked at me and asked what time it was. I replied that it was 11:47 without even realizing that I was establishing Mom's time of death.
The last few days have been somewhat of a blur but I have been very impressed with how everyone involved has been so polite and professional, including the people at the Nursing Center, the Hospice Group, The Funeral Home, and the Church.
Mom is at rest now and the rest of us will slowly return to some sense of normalcy but it will hurt for a long time. We are now officially the oldest generation!
