Holding vigil

My sister, brother and I are taking turns holding vigil. Sometimes we're all here, and sometimes just one or two. We have been taking turns spending the night.

The night before last, which was Peg's night, my mother began having tremors. Peg called Bill and me, who were asleep at her house, thinking that Mom was about to pass away, so we drove over to the Hospice House to join her, so she wouldn't have to be alone. By the time we got there--this was at 3 am--the medications administered by the Hospice House staff had calmed Mom's tremors. Her breathing was still very labored, and there were long spells of 30-50 seconds when she didn't inhale (apnea), but she continued to hang on.

After a few hours, Peg went back to her house to try to sleep, while Bill and I did the best we could to rest while staying with Mom.

Last night, Bill stayed. Mom's breathing has become more regular and a lot more shallow. The breaths are not as loud as they have been for the past two days. This is a mixed blessing, because holding vigil while Mom's inhalations were so noisy was so, so sad that it made us almost crazy. Now that her inhalations are quieter, it is easier to believe that she is passing on peacefully. To be blunt, it is now easier to conceive of the process of dying as a spiritual transition, while yesterday, death seemed to be a cruel, tortuous mechanical failure.

From one perspective, the perspective of these past three weeks, my mother is not passing away quickly, but from the overview, as my Aunt Rose Van Dyk reminded me on the phone yesterday, Mom has been able to participate actively in life nearly up to the end. In just February, Mom, Peg, I, she and Mom's brother Uncle Adrian were all in Kaui'i, Hawaii, and Mom was pretty much keeping up with her daughters, doing everything that we did.

I think that's pretty much the ending Mom has hoped for herself: live actively, and then stop rather suddenly. She has made for herself a good, good life, I believe.