Disturbing visit with Mom. Advice?
I went to see my mom yesterday. When I got there mom was actually up using her walker to go to the bathroom - first time I've seen her moving on her own in quite a while. After she got settled back into her recliner she said she had some important things for me. Mom handed me a much folded piece of paper covered in writing that didn't make a lot of sense to me. But on one part she had listed the important events in her life along with the year of occurance. Birth, college graduation, meeting my dad, marriage, first real job, birth of children etc. Mom said it was important for me to have this and handed it to me with the reverence due the original tablets containing the 10 Commandments. Then she gave me a zip-lock baggie containing a weird assortment of items and papers. Paper clips, random business cards, a page from an address book that was blank except for where she had written the word "scarf", a magazine article about the band One Direction (she doesn't even know who they are) and a few other odd things - again this was done with solemn reverence. I asked her about a few of the items but she really wasn't able to explain in any way that made sense. Baffled, but Iet it go. Mom went on to say she was going to die right after the New Year. I asked why she thought that and she said "it seems like a good time to wrap things up". Then she said she wanted me to help her with buying Christmas gifts. We spent an hour going over her list of people and deciding on gifts. I told her I would also pick up cards for her - for these specific people which pleased her. It was important to her that I get these things for her to personalize - made me promise I would have them for her in a week. Before I left she talked about how much she had always wanted a baby girl. With tears in her eyes she told me how happy she was the day I was born and said "you turned out pretty good". By the time I was walking to my car I was crying - and spent most of last night crying on and off. Finally my questions: First - does anyone here believe in NDA - near death awareness? When my dad was dying hospice gave me a copy of Final Gifts. It address what happens as people begin the process of dying. I thumbed through it but didn't read it and tossed it after dad died. It says it's common for people to take stock of their lives - to focus on the major events. It also said a lot of people who are in the death process can predict the date of their death with uncanny precision. Is this what's happening with my mom? And secondly - she has been so miserable to me I thought her death would be a relief to me - I never expected to feel the sadness I am. And it isn't over nostalgia because mom was no June Cleaver. Why so many conflicting emotions? And is NDA real?
But seriously, right or wrong, it is always good to not postpone the things you would want to have done with someone, just because life really is fragile.
My MIL insisted she was going to die Easter Sunday 2015. She did not, lived all the way to October. So they don't really know 100% of the time.
I was not aware of any NDA before my husband did pass. He was on hospice and he knew what that meant so I guess he was "expecting" to die. I'd arranged for everyone to see him in the previous few weeks. Our daughter from out of state had been there and gone. Even his ex-wife had seen him. All of us, including hospice, were expecting him to live several more weeks.
My Aunt Ethel began preparing for her death in her 80s. One time we visited and the lace tablecloth that was always on her dining table had been replaced by a plastic one. She explained that she wanted her daughter to have that so she gave it to her to avoid confusion after she passed. Over the next few years other items disappeared from her house. She gave her complete collection of the local school year books (she bought them even when she had no one in school that year) to the local library. She got, as they say, her affairs in order. In her nineties she checked herself in to the local care center. She was a no-nonsense, highly practical, intelligent woman. She knew that she was going to die because everyone does. She lived to be 100. As far as I know, she never had any NDA.
Preparing for death may or may not be the same as a premonition that one will die soon. But I don't doubt that some people do have this awareness.
The premonitions happened just a few times more, but only if I was under the weather with a bad cold or whatever.
1) When my second child was born, I did nothing to prepare for her homecoming. Then after giving birth, I asked my Dr what day it was (long labor!) he triumphantly announced the date and time and weight of baby and I said 'No, this can't be her birth date' He said why not? I thought for a moment and I replied, 'I can't see us celebrating this day for the rest of her life. Everyone looked at me blankly for a moment then activity resumed in the room. A few hours later she died. Heart failure.
2) 11 years later. I attended my niece's communion which was facilitated by her Uncle, my brother in-law. He wore full ceremonial attire, he looked like a bishop. After the ceremony it occurred to me that I will never see him dress like this again. I asked myself where such a thought would come from. I felt he was going to die before he lived out his dream of officiating at all future family ceremonies. Indeed, 8 years later he died two days before performing wedding vows. We attended a his wake on Friday and a wedding on Saturday. He died of cancer within a year of being diagnosed. But I thought he was going to last until the wedding.
3) I hired a young man at work. Very smart, talented and he drew my attention. I couldn't help thinking about his future and it occurred to me that he was too introspective for his own good. He finished out his internship and returned to college. The next summer I got the news that he died in a head on collision. His vehicle crossed the center line. I looked up the police report. The other driver was intoxicated and charged with man slaughter. I know that was a fact but am also certain the young man was distracted and crossed the line into oncoming traffic. Very tragic for both parties involved.
4) one of my big bosses was a mother of two. I admired her career but had a bad feeling about her taking on too much work. I felt she was not taking enough care of herself. She was constantly on her cell phone. I felt her health was at risk. That same week she ran her car off the road while on her cell phone. She survived. But I'm kicking myself for not doing something about it. She was unable to return to work due to health.
I tell myself that its not true. My premonitions are of no use to me or anyone else. I've had these thoughts before but they are of those elderly and expected to die soon anyway. I try to evaluate these premonitions to see what good it would do for me to say something out loud but have decided that I'm not God and if He has a job for me then He would enable me to do it.
I'm pretty certain that I will be able to predict my own death.
What is so bizarre is that I was appointed her daughter's DPOA and a few years later she developed dementia and I am her caregiver. So odd.
I understand why you felt the way you did. It sounds like you had an amazing visit with your mom. An emotional visit. And like cwillie said, regardless of your relationship with your mom she's still your mom and you will mourn her loss if the mourning hasn't started already.
I would take this as a gift, an insight into the innermost thoughts of your mom, and try not to read anything more than that into it.