I remember the day she died all too well, yet at the same time it is a blur. I know I was in shock when the doctors told me she had died. Then became violently ill. My whole world collapsed in on me. Became even worse when I realized my daughter and my son no longer had a mamaw and I had to tell them. I wanted to die rather than to tell my children this heart wrenching news. To die would have been so much easier and would relieve me of my pain. The pain consumed me completely. I am not sure how I functioned for the next week. Being my mom’s only child, I had all of the responsibilities and none of the experience. I slept for the next week five days, waking up for just for a few hours here and there. I wanted to wake up and realize it was a dream, a bad dream. I couldn’t even eat for those five days. I remember looking at my husband with my eyes full of tears and asking sincerely, “Please tell me this is a dream, please tell me this didn’t really happen... please!” He looked at me so sad to reassure that this indeed had happened... I just couldn’t believe it. Due to grief I was physically ill and emotionally wounded to the core. I was so numb yet so raw. I felt everything, but felt nothing. I spent most of the day of the funeral outside of myself, observing life as I knew it dying before me. I survived that day and it has been hard though. The pain will always be here.

The week after my mom passed away I went to the cemetery frequently... the first day there.. I just fell to my knees and yelled and cried so hard I couldn’t breathe. The next time I just stood there in awe. I just couldn’t come to the reality that my mom who is my world is here no more with me. I hated everyone! I even hated God... and wanted to know why everyone I ever loved has been taken away from me. WHY!!! But then I started to process my feelings and realize it wasn’t him that took her away from me but relieved her from her pain.. And apparently, as much as I hate to say it, that was the best thing for her.

The week of my mom’s death was a strange one. On Friday, October 11, 2002, I called looking for my mom from work. I had an incredible feeling of sadness come over me and I wanted to call her and make sure everything was okay. I had also had a very vivid dream, (ones I have a lot, dreams that seem so real, that at times I have even woke up crying and in the middle of an anxiety attack), that my mom had passed away. So I was feeling overwhelmed and finally I found mom she was at the hospital getting ready to have her paracentesis, (removing fluid from the abdomen using local anesthesia with a needle and syringe) a procedure she had done many times before. The chemo made her body retain fluid and they simply removed it doing this, and the next day she would be fine. Well, I left work on my lunch break and went and sat with her back in the ER. They were unable to remove her fluid that day because her blood was dangerously thin. The doctors had put her on Coumadin (blood thinner) about a month ago because she had some blood clots in her legs. She was hospitalized over that. When she was released they had her take the Coumadin to prevent anymore clots. However with her taken this medicine, this now interfered with her ability to have a paracentesis done... she was very upset over this because the fluid made her very uncomfortable and after it would be removed she would be better. That day they told her she was unable to have the procedure, she was very upset and went home. I left and told her I would be over Sunday to spend the day with her.

On Sunday, we were to go to a benefit that her boyfriend was doing sound at, but it was so cold that day we decided to just stay home. I had brought some movies over. So my mom, my husband, and I just stayed home and watched some movies and ate subway. We had a really nice day. It was getting late and the kids would be coming back home from their dads soon, so I gave mom a kiss and told her I would see her later and call her tomorrow. We also talked about the play we had got tickets to go to on the following Sunday (who would of known this would be the day they would bury my mom). The kids, my husband, mom, and I were all going.. And was very excited to be going.

I called her Monday and she said she was feeling okay and we talked for a while when I was at work. On Tuesday, I was fired from my job, for a reason I’d rather not speak of, it was something in my past that came to haunt me. I was so upset. I called mom that night and told her, she said, “Honey it will be okay. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be, sweetie. Miss you know everything happens for a reason.” And with that I felt somewhat better, more at ease with what had happened So I hung up the phone and went home. On Wednesday, my daughter, Chelsea stayed home from school that day... cant remember why, but she was with me. We decided we would drive down to see mom and spend sometime with her. I didn’t call her... I just went...

When we got to mom’s home. We noticed everyone was there even my grandma. So we went in and mom was lying on the couch and she said she was so miserable from the fluid. She had called the doctor and told him she had to have it removed, she just couldn’t bare the pain anymore. The doctor agreed to withdrawal the fluid, himself. She was getting ready to go to the doctors office when we got there. She couldn’t get her self ready, so I got her clothes out for her and dressed her. She told me that she would be back later. Chelsea and I didn’t get to say long we gave her a kiss and told her we loved her. I told her to call me when she got back home. Her boyfriend and grandma were going to go with her to the doctors. As I walked out the door, mom said “Miss thank you for helping me and all you do. I love you. Love you too Chelsea, you are mamaws precious Lil angel and we smiled and told her we loved her too and that we’d talk to her later. That later never came. Today I regret that I didn’t go, I took her every time! I was always there every chemo treatment and every doctor visit. The kids and I would go and stay with her for hours while she had her treatments! Why didn’t I go this time?!!!!!!

Chels and I drove back home, once we got there, my son and husband, JD were home. We started to get dinner ready. I remember what we had that night... after dinner we went to the living room to watch TV. It was around 9pm at this time. When I heard a knock at the door. My husband opened it and it was my exhusband, Jamie (the kids dad) and he wouldn’t even look me in the eyes. He said “Missy get dressed and come with me!! I started to panic! I knew something was wrong! I kept asking what is it? He wouldn’t tell me. Finally my husband, JD went on the porch with him and he told him it was my mom, her heart had stopped, and they had revived her twice and she was the hospital in ICU. My husband, JD came up to me in the bedroom and said HURRY! I looked at him and said “Its my mom isn’t it?” he just shook his head. I started to shake and tremble. As I ran down the steps hurrying as fast as I could (I lived an hr away in Meade. Co, from the hospital, Baptist East) I looked at Jamie and told him you take the kids... JD and I are going to the hospital. I need him there by my side.

We jumped in the car and I sped off. I just couldn’t get there fast enough. I kept chanting over and over please god let me get there. I drove as fast as I could and cars just moved gracefully out of my way. God was helping me get there. As I arrived at the hospital. I threw my car in gear, and ran barefooted through the ER. I screamed, my mom is here, my mom is here! Please hurry take me to her. They asked her name I told them and they hurried me down this long hall to a room. As I walked in the first thing I saw was a priest. I started to shake and cry and shouted NO NO I looked at everyone in the room. My brother, his wife, moms boyfriend, and grandma. They all looked at me and said No Missy No, she is still in ICU. I just fell to the floor on my knees and cried. I kept begging them to take me to her PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!

Finally they took me back, they warned me that when I seen her that it would be kinda scary. And it was! The first glance of her still sits in my head like a broken projector. I hate it!!!! She was in a room and tubes were everywhere! They had a tube tied around her face down her throat forcing her to breath. I moved over to the other side of her bed and she laid there, lifeless. .. Her eyes blank just staring in space almost fully dilated. It is a look that you will never forget, it is edged in my memory, one I wish I could forget. God my heart broke in a million pieces, my legs became numb, and I almost passed out. I started to go into a panic attack. I told her mom I love you, you know that, I love you. I am here now. I swear she heard me, I seen her nod her head just slightly. The nurses said there was no way she could hear me. (Isn’t that nice) That it was just the machine breathing for her. I had to leave the room for awhile it was just too much to register in my brain. I don’t even remember walking out. I went to the waiting room. I fell to the ground on my knees, and wept like I had never wept. I yelled , WHY GOD WHY GOD NO PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY MOM, NO!!! Friends and family had to leave the room. I guess it was too hard on them to see me in such pain. I waited and waited what seemed an eternity. They doctors kept coming out and updating us on her condition.

I asked how, what.. What made her get this way!? They had told me when she had her fluid drawn the needle puncture had left a wound inside that started some internal bleeding and it just went from there. She had loss so much blood internally and that is what caused her heart to stop. They brought her back but now her brain wasn’t functioning and the only thing keeping her alive was the life support. They had done all they could do. They gave her 10 pints of blood. Several bags of plasma and nothing was getting better. They told me I needed to make the decision of giving them permission to turn the machine off. I was the only one who could give it to them. That I needed to go spend my last moments with her there was nothing else they could do. I went in at first for while and then left to the hallway god I hated life I didn’t want to live anymore! I wanted to go with her! Then I remember my kids.. OH GOD!

I called Jamie, my ex, and told him. He cried too. Everyone loved my mom so much. I told him he needed to bring the kids there. I knew if I didn’t give them a chance to be with her they might never forgive me for it. Mamaw was their world, too. So was their papaw, who is no longer in our lives, and they never got to say good bye to him and that has really bothered them even to this day. So this was going to be very hard on them and I wanted them to have that chance if they wanted to. They got there and I tried to be strong. I told them that mamaw was in heaven now. My son puked everywhere! He was only 10 yrs old. My daughter began to cry.. She was 13. They went back to see her and at that time they had closed her eyes and took all the tubes out so they wouldn’t have to see her that way. They hugged and kissed her. We cried a lot. Then we left. That was so hard.

Leaving the hospital. I was so empty. I just didn’t know what to do. I just couldn’t think of my life now and how it would be now.... Today my heart still hurts as if it happened this very day. The pain never goes away. I have been forever changed since the death of my mom. A part of me died that day too. The other part that I struggle with every day is the fact that "I" had to turn the machine off. It haunts me.