I use numbers a lot. Number of days. Number of years. Number of hours. Lots of numbers. Numbers are milestones. Numbers are infinite. Time is not infinite. Life is not infinite.
7 years ago today, February 26th 2015, I received the news that would forever shatter my world. My mother had terminal brain cancer and was going to die. I decided to make a post on that anniversary every year, to remind myself and others how precious life is. How FINITE, short and unexpected life can be.
I never imagined when I made that first anniversary post in 2016 that 6 years later I’d be adding to the post another sudden death to remind myself, my friends and my family to live life to the fullest. I never imagined in that post that the hardest thing I’d ever go through was still before me instead of behind me. Here are both of those stories. You never know what each day will bring. Live each day; each minute, as if it were your last. While it seems impossible to think about our own mortality, we must remember our own death is inevitable at a time and place that has already been determined. We have an expiration date of sorts.
The Loss Of My Mother
My annual post & reminder on this day
7 years ?!? How is that possible? So much has changed. So many missed moments with you. Memories not made. Milestones not celebrated. It feels like it was just yesterday that our world was shattered. I’m still trying to pick up the pieces 7 years later. Reading those words today still takes my breath away the same way it did then. Our lives would forever be changed that day. I had no idea when I answered moms call at 8:15 that day that our world was about to be upended in ways we could never imagine.
7 years ago, 2/26/2015. it was a Thursday morning, 815am the phone rang. Mom called me most mornings so it was nothing unusual. Today was different. Her speech was slurred. I could hear the fear in her voice. “What’s wrong?” I said. “I think we need to get to St. Peter’s. My arm is numb. I have a headache” she replied. I knew it was bad instantly. The woman who fought me most every chance she could get about going to doctors appointments was willingly asking me to take her to the hospital. I called Cindy & Cathy. “Meet me at moms. We’re going to St. Peter’s. She’s having another stroke. She said no ambulance. She wants me to take her.” Within 30 minutes the 3 of us met at moms house and we were on the way to St. Peter’s Hospital.
We arrived and let the valet take the car. They rushed mom into the ER and out the other ER doors for a CT scan. The 3 of us huddled with each other and our phones in the waiting area calling family to let them know where we were and what we suspected. After what seemed like hours, but it wasn’t, they brought her back from tests and told us we could only have 2 people come in. Cathy and I went in to be with her while Cindy waited alone for word. They said the doctor would be with us shortly. He came in. I braced myself. I knew it was bad from the look on his face. He stood before my mom, Cathy and I and the words I never imagined I would hear came. “She has 12 lesions on her brain. It’s terminal brain cancer. I’m sorry there is nothing we can do.” Our lives have never been the same since. Time stood still in that instant. Like everything switched to slow motion. I felt my knees start to shake, the blood drain from my face.
I’ll never forget the look on my mothers face as she looked at me and snapped me back to reality and said “Bo, what did he say, what does that mean?” I tried to explain it to her again so she could begin to understand the gravity of those words. Her face at that moment is forever etched in my mind. I’ll never forget the fear in her eyes and what it felt like to stand before my mother, the woman who gave me life, and tell her she’s going to die. She asked me if she’d live to see summer; her favorite time of the year. I told her we’d try to do everything we could to make that happen.
I left her and Cathy in the ER. I needed to tell the family. I’ll never forget the walk from the ER to the waiting room to have to tell Cindy who we’d left sitting out there alone. She knew from the look on my face. All I could do was blurt it out. “Cancer. She’s going to die”. We hugged. We cried. I’ll never forget what it felt like to have to tell my father and our entire family the news. Nothing else in my life will ever be as hard as what I had to do that day. NOTHING!
Mom didn’t live to see summer. She died 41 days later; April 7, 2015. Just 41 days from the day of the devastating news…..
The Loss Of My Wife; Soulmate and Best Friend
When I stood in the ER on this day 7 years ago telling the woman who gave me life that hers was going to end, I never could have imagined there’d be anything harder than that moment. How wrong I was.
97 days have gone by since Sunday, November 21st, 2021 when Laurie suffered a brain aneurysm at home. It’s been nearly 100 days without Laurie. Most days I manage to put one foot in front of the other. Some days I struggle to even get out of bed. My therapist says both things are “normal”. But inside, none of this feels normal at all.
Sunday morning November 21st, 2021 started like any other day, 810am, Laurie getting her morning coffee. She stood in the kitchen and said she had a pain in her eye and a bad headache. She walked to the bedroom with her coffee and said she needed to get to the bathroom. As I stood with her at the bathroom sink, her breathing changed. She said “get me to the bed.” She collapsed in my arms onto the bathroom floor. She laid there fighting her life as I yelled for Michael and laid along side of her and called 911. Within minutes of that, she was in the fight of her life.
By 930am I found myself standing in the Emergency Room in St. Peter’s hospital again answering question after question from doctors and nurses trying to save her life. They needed to sedate her and intubate her. They came back from the CT Scan to say it was a SAH (Subarachnoid Hemorrhage). She was critical but stable. She needed immediate transfer to Albany Medical Center. A medical team consisting of 7 providers immediately made arrangements to ride with her in the ambulance to St. Peter’s. They were drawing diagrams of who was going to stand where in the ambulance to care for her. We finally saw her again about 1:30pm. She was on life support while they prepared to drain the fluid overwhelming her brain. By 6pm she’d had numerous procedures to try and relieve the pressure and bleeding. It was shortly before 9pm they told me there was no brain activity. That was confirmed by additional testing Monday at Noon. Staff placed us in a conference room to wait for the doctors to come speak to us. We knew what that meant. At 1230pm they walked in to give us the news that there was no brain activity. Laurie was gone. She remained on life support so that the Organ Donation and Transplant Team could arrange for organ donation. Laurie was a registered organ donor. Her life lives on because of her gift to others.
Why Share These Heartbreaking Stories?
I tell you all of this not for sympathy or to make you sad or upset anyone because they think I share too much. I tell you these things because this is the reality of what happens in the blink of an eye. Decisions will have to be made. Actions will need to be taken. and your life will FOREVER be changed by them.
So, my reminder to myself, my family and my friends.
When people tell you to never take a day for granted and that your life can change in the blink of an eye, they are right. I know it. I FELT it on February 26th, 2015 and I FELT it again on November 21st, 2021. I literally felt my life change and there was not a damn thing I could do to stop it.
Remember to live each day to the fullest. You never know what tomorrow will bring. Have that ice cream. Don’t go to bed angry. Make that phone call. Buy that dress. Say you’re sorry. Take that vacation. Buy your dream car. Tell someone you love them. You may never get that chance again.
Grief After Loss 