I Have A Son Who Looks Like You.

Saturday April 11th 2009 was a very sad day that I will never forget. It was a beautiful warm spring day as Janine and I drove to Toronto. My mother was now confined to a hospital bed at Humber Memorial Hospital and she had deteriorated very quickly over the past week or so after being admitted. I had gone to visit her five days earlier on the previous Monday and I knew then that she would never be going back to her nursing home ever again.

My brother and his wife would also be arriving from Michigan on that Saturday morning. They had planned to spend the morning at the hospital and then would be coming back also on the Sunday before heading back to the States. Janine and I were planning on meeting them at the hospital once we arrived around noon. When Janine and I arrived at the hospital, I was told my mother had been moved up to the sixth floor. She had been on the fourth floor earlier that week when I visited her. When I arrived at the sixth floor I was told my mother was in the last room at the end of the hallway. I walked down to the room and went inside. I saw three elderly women who all looked to be in a very distressed state. However, my mother was not one of them.

On my way out of the room the woman in the first bed told me that she had a son who looked like me.

I smiled.

I walked back to the nursing station on the floor and asked them to double check what room my mother was in. The nurse confirmed that my mother was indeed in the last room and that she was in the first bed as you walked in. If that was the case then the woman who had just told me she had a son who looked like me, would have been my mother. I walked back to the room and this time Janine was with me. The woman who was in the first bed was indeed my mother.

She was now unrecognizable to me since my last visit five days earlier and the change in her appearance was so drastic. She was gaunt, frail and very elderly looking, she looked as if she was now a hundred years old.

She now looked like she was on her death bed.

My mother had tubes in her mouth and arms and she was breathing very heavily. She had her eyes open when Janine and I walked over beside her bed. She looked at both of us, but she never acknowledged us. I held her hand and told her we were there for her. I showed her the cans of ginger ale I had brought for her before I put them on her night stand. There was no reaction whatsoever, nothing but a blank stare as she drifted off to sleep.

Once my brother arrived we were both able to talk with the doctor.

My mother’s will clearly stipulated that if and when she ever got to the state she was now in healthwise, my brother was authorized to make all her medical decisions. My mother did not want to be kept alive in a non-functioning vegetated state. She made it quite clear she wanted no feeding tubes just for the sole purpose of keeping her alive and breathing. If doctors ruled out any hope of her ever returning back to her old self, my mother wanted my brother to let her go and to let her die peacefully.

I too knew of our mother’s wishes, but because I was not a Jehovah’s Witness and my brother was that is why she wanted him to handle all her end of life decisions.

The doctor confirmed that our mother would not be leaving the hospital.

He couldn’t give us an exact timeline, but he told us she would be spending her final days in the hospital. She was heavily sedated, comfortable, pain free and was being nourished through a feeding tube. My brother told the doctor that he wanted our mother to be kept comfortable and to let her die peacefully.

The doctor agreed with my brother’s request.

My mother was sleeping when Janine and I left the hospital that afternoon and we knew that we would most likely be back in just a matter of days. The nurses told us that there was nothing we could do by just hanging around the hospital. They told us to go back home, get some rest and they would call us when the time came for us to return.

No sooner had we arrived back home in Bracebridge when we got a call from the hospital. My mother had taken a turn for the worse and had just a matter of hours left to live. I was told that it would probably be later that evening when she would pass away. We got back in the car and drove right back to the hospital we had left just a couple hours earlier. My brother and his wife were also there and all four of us were now prepared for the worst to happen much sooner than we had anticipated. Although, the death of my mother was something that I had never prepared for up to that day.

Our mother had now been moved to another smaller room at the other end of the hallway. There was another woman also in the room who was in the same situation as our mother. She too was on her deathbed, but she would not be passing away on that evening. She was sedated and sleeping and she had no idea what was going on right beside her on the other side of the curtain.

Our mother had originally been admitted ten days earlier due to pneumonia. Her Parkinson’s disease had progressed rapidly over the last year or so and pneumonia is a very common complication of late stages Parkinson’s. The nurse explained it would be the pneumonia that would be taking our mother from us and not her Parkinson's disease. Her breathing was now very labored and she was heavily sedated. She had no idea the four of us were there with her in the room.

It was probably close to 5 pm when we all grabbed a chair from out in the hallway. We all now sat in the room just waiting for the woman who had given birth to me almost fifty years earlier to take her final breath. The nurse was now coming into the room on a regular basis to check on our mother.

At around 9 pm she told us it would not be much longer.

It was such a strange, weird and awful feeling just sitting around with my brother who I had basically already washed my hands of a decade earlier. I still had his phone number only because I knew this day would eventually come. However, I always assumed that when our mother died it would be a sudden death and the nursing home would be contacting me and I would then have to contact my brother.

And that would be the only reason why I still had his phone number.

The only thing that my brother and I now had in common was that we both shared the same mother. The only reason why we were now together in that room was because the woman who would soon be passing away had given birth to both of us.

She was both of our mother.

I hated just sitting around waiting for our mother to die. It was such a morbid feeling to know you would not be going home until you watched someone take their final breath. I remember that night was also the Leafs final game of the season. Over the course of the evening I would occasionally meander about in the hallway and stretch my legs while searching for a room with the game on television to get the score.

I found none.

While we sat around my brother and I would reminisce about some of the memorable times we shared with our mother. Naturally, every single memory revolved around her faith and us growing up as Jehovah’s Witnesses. My mother’s life was her religion and she had served her God Jehovah faithfully for well over forty years. Witnesses do not believe in heaven, hell or an afterlife once a person dies. Although had she did, I have no doubt whatsoever that there would be a spot in heaven waiting for my mother later that evening.

At about 11:30 pm the nurse came back into the room and told us it was time. The monitors she was hooked up to with all the beeping sounds were signaling that the end was near. Our mothers pulse was dropping and her breathing was much heavier and labored. My brother and his wife went to one side of her bed while Janine and I stood on the other side. The nurse gave her one final injection and left the room so we could have the last few minutes in privacy.

Her eyes were closed and the line on the monitor was becoming less jagged. My brother was holding our mothers right hand and I was holding her left while all four of us were sobbing loudly. I told my mother that I loved her, I thanked her for raising me and everything she did for me while growing up. I then kissed her on the forehead. The line on the monitor went flat while the beeping sounds all stopped and her breathing was no longer labored. Our mother was finally at peace. Her hand that I was holding, I placed on her stomach as did my brother.

It was ten minutes before midnight when the four of us walked out of her room. Before I did I glanced over at my mother one last time, she looked so peaceful and I was happy that she was no longer suffering. The nurse came back into the room and said she was sorry for our loss. The four of us all got on the elevator and walked out of the Humber Memorial Hospital for the last time. It had been a very emotional night for each of us; I had never experienced anything like that night before in my life.

While I was driving home, I remember thinking that the last words my mother ever spoke would have been to me.

"I have a son who looks like you."

I started to cry all over again.