On the Birth and Death of Angels, Part Two
(Author’s Note: It has been nearly 16 years since the death of my mother. I think of her daily; talk about her, especially to my children, often. And I dream about her more nights than not. But I have never written about her, or her death, or how she still affects three little lives she left behind. I have avoided it studiously, made excuses, fabricated reasons and well, just plain avoided it. The time has come for me to do this. And so it begins).
On July 20, 1996 my daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Berr, was born. Four days later, her paternal grandmother, Phyllis Schmidt Berr, died.
Rachel’s first day on earth included spending four hours or so in the infant ICU due to some relatively common condition that prevented the doctors from getting a fully audible heartbeat. I watched her scream bloody murder as they attempted to put an IV in her tiny wrist barely an hour after she was born. The doctors told me that her screaming was a good sign, that she was a fighter. I struggled with my emotions as I silently moved back and forth between my wife’s room and the ICU, allowing myself to show concern when with the doctors, forcing myself to smile when with my wife. Information was scant, and I found myself imagining the worst and hoping for the best. A normal reaction, I suppose, but one I was not accustomed to experiencing. Despite the fact that it was the second time in five months that I found myself faced with that sort of circumstance.
While all this was happening, at a hospice care facility a mere 100 miles or so away, my mother lay dying of brain cancer.
In February of 1996 my parents came up to our apartment in Connecticut to take my wife and I out for my birthday. I was turning thirty three and at the time, my wife was three months pregnant with our first child. After dinner, my father and I went to Dunkin’ Donuts for a cup of coffee. My mother, who only decided she also wanted a cup after we had left, enlisted my wife’s help in brewing one in our machine at home. Now my wife does not drink coffee, therefore, has no idea how to use a coffee machine. Coffee is my thing in our home. Always was, always will be.
When my father and I got back, the two of them were in the kitchen puzzling over the machine. Now my mother has been using coffee machines since they’ve been around, but for some reason, she couldn’t figure out my Mr. Coffee. At the time, we laughed it off. At the time, we didn’t know it was the beginning of the end.
Three weeks later, after increasing episodes resembling Mr. Coffee, my mother was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. It wasn’t a tumor. It was a series of lesions that permeated her brain and affected even the most mundane of everyday activities. The prognosis was not good, but regardless, treatment began immediately.
I remember the phone call from my father, explaining the situation, like it was yesterday. I remember that sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and, even now, it remains there because, well, it belongs there.
A couple of weeks later, I began to use my days off to go home to New Jersey to be with my parents. It was important, I think, to both of them for me to be there as much as I could. Truth be told I was being selfish; it was more important to me. I was there for trips to New York City for her treatment. I was there to see my father’s anger and bitterness. I was there to not be able to answer when my mother asked, “Why me?” But most importantly, I was there.
It wasn’t that long, maybe three months or so, when we knew that nothing could be done. It was in June we all made the decision to let it go. No more treatments. No more fooling ourselves. No more fooling anyone.
My trips to see them had started to become a bit of a burden. Not because of my mother or father, but because as time went on, my wife got closer and closer to the due date for our baby. The burden was not on my wife either. It was one I bore myself. It was a burden of love; for my mother, for my wife and for my unborn child. It was, to be brutally frank, simultaneously both the most devastating and happiest time of my life. I laughed and I cried pretty much on a daily basis.
Shortly before our family decision to take my mother off all the meds, we had the baby shower for my wife. My father brought my mother up to Connecticut to be there and stayed overnight in a local hotel. When I look back on that day, I realize now that it as much as it was a special day for my wife, it was a monumental day for my mother. As was the day my wife and I went to New Jersey together so we could take my mother out to shop for the baby. It was one of a handful of days that I will always remember because my mother, knowing that she was dying, was not going to let anything keep her from her duty as an impending grandmother. Nothing.
It needs to be said, that throughout this entire ordeal, that my wife was completely and unconditionally supportive. Despite being pregnant with our daughter, she put up with my constant trips to New Jersey. She put up with my mood swings, my laughter and my tears. She put up with the fact that I was not, no matter how I tried, able to give her my and our baby the attention they deserved. This became even more crystal clear than ever about a week or so before our due date.
My mother was in Cornell Medical Center in New York (coincidentally, the very same hospital where I had my open heart surgery twenty five years earlier). She was going to be moved to a hospice facility within a day or two and I knew, as the due date approached, my time to see her was limited. My wife accompanied me on that visit and for that I am forever grateful. I know how difficult that must have been, and I wouldn’t have blamed her if she stayed home. But she came, to be by my side, to be with me when it mattered most. Hell, we were in a hospital. If she went into labor, what better place to be?
We spent only about 15 minutes or so with her together. My mother couldn’t really communicate at that point but we both had the sense that she totally understood every word we spoke. But out in the hall, after the visit, I knew that I would never see her again. And I was not done with her.
So I went back in the room, this time alone. I stood by her bedside and gently turned her head so she was facing me. Amazingly, she smiled. I took both her hands in mine and spoke one sentence. “It is because of you, and only you, that I am ready to be a father to my baby girl.” I then kissed her on the forehead, wiped a tear away from her face, and left the room.
To be continued.
On July 20, 1996 my daughter, Rachel Elizabeth Berr, was born. Four days later, her paternal grandmother, Phyllis Schmidt Berr, died.
Rachel’s first day on earth included spending four hours or so in the infant ICU due to some relatively common condition that prevented the doctors from getting a fully audible heartbeat. I watched her scream bloody murder as they attempted to put an IV in her tiny wrist barely an hour after she was born. The doctors told me that her screaming was a good sign, that she was a fighter. I struggled with my emotions as I silently moved back and forth between my wife’s room and the ICU, allowing myself to show concern when with the doctors, forcing myself to smile when with my wife. Information was scant, and I found myself imagining the worst and hoping for the best. A normal reaction, I suppose, but one I was not accustomed to experiencing. Despite the fact that it was the second time in five months that I found myself faced with that sort of circumstance.
While all this was happening, at a hospice care facility a mere 100 miles or so away, my mother lay dying of brain cancer.
In February of 1996 my parents came up to our apartment in Connecticut to take my wife and I out for my birthday. I was turning thirty three and at the time, my wife was three months pregnant with our first child. After dinner, my father and I went to Dunkin’ Donuts for a cup of coffee. My mother, who only decided she also wanted a cup after we had left, enlisted my wife’s help in brewing one in our machine at home. Now my wife does not drink coffee, therefore, has no idea how to use a coffee machine. Coffee is my thing in our home. Always was, always will be.
When my father and I got back, the two of them were in the kitchen puzzling over the machine. Now my mother has been using coffee machines since they’ve been around, but for some reason, she couldn’t figure out my Mr. Coffee. At the time, we laughed it off. At the time, we didn’t know it was the beginning of the end.
Three weeks later, after increasing episodes resembling Mr. Coffee, my mother was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer. It wasn’t a tumor. It was a series of lesions that permeated her brain and affected even the most mundane of everyday activities. The prognosis was not good, but regardless, treatment began immediately.
I remember the phone call from my father, explaining the situation, like it was yesterday. I remember that sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach and, even now, it remains there because, well, it belongs there.
A couple of weeks later, I began to use my days off to go home to New Jersey to be with my parents. It was important, I think, to both of them for me to be there as much as I could. Truth be told I was being selfish; it was more important to me. I was there for trips to New York City for her treatment. I was there to see my father’s anger and bitterness. I was there to not be able to answer when my mother asked, “Why me?” But most importantly, I was there.
It wasn’t that long, maybe three months or so, when we knew that nothing could be done. It was in June we all made the decision to let it go. No more treatments. No more fooling ourselves. No more fooling anyone.
My trips to see them had started to become a bit of a burden. Not because of my mother or father, but because as time went on, my wife got closer and closer to the due date for our baby. The burden was not on my wife either. It was one I bore myself. It was a burden of love; for my mother, for my wife and for my unborn child. It was, to be brutally frank, simultaneously both the most devastating and happiest time of my life. I laughed and I cried pretty much on a daily basis.
Shortly before our family decision to take my mother off all the meds, we had the baby shower for my wife. My father brought my mother up to Connecticut to be there and stayed overnight in a local hotel. When I look back on that day, I realize now that it as much as it was a special day for my wife, it was a monumental day for my mother. As was the day my wife and I went to New Jersey together so we could take my mother out to shop for the baby. It was one of a handful of days that I will always remember because my mother, knowing that she was dying, was not going to let anything keep her from her duty as an impending grandmother. Nothing.
It needs to be said, that throughout this entire ordeal, that my wife was completely and unconditionally supportive. Despite being pregnant with our daughter, she put up with my constant trips to New Jersey. She put up with my mood swings, my laughter and my tears. She put up with the fact that I was not, no matter how I tried, able to give her my and our baby the attention they deserved. This became even more crystal clear than ever about a week or so before our due date.
My mother was in Cornell Medical Center in New York (coincidentally, the very same hospital where I had my open heart surgery twenty five years earlier). She was going to be moved to a hospice facility within a day or two and I knew, as the due date approached, my time to see her was limited. My wife accompanied me on that visit and for that I am forever grateful. I know how difficult that must have been, and I wouldn’t have blamed her if she stayed home. But she came, to be by my side, to be with me when it mattered most. Hell, we were in a hospital. If she went into labor, what better place to be?
We spent only about 15 minutes or so with her together. My mother couldn’t really communicate at that point but we both had the sense that she totally understood every word we spoke. But out in the hall, after the visit, I knew that I would never see her again. And I was not done with her.
So I went back in the room, this time alone. I stood by her bedside and gently turned her head so she was facing me. Amazingly, she smiled. I took both her hands in mine and spoke one sentence. “It is because of you, and only you, that I am ready to be a father to my baby girl.” I then kissed her on the forehead, wiped a tear away from her face, and left the room.
To be continued.
Comments