No easy way to say this... my mother is dying.

My mother -- my beloved Ma -- is dying.

I have just returned home, briefly, from what was supposed to be an hour or two's worth of visit to her at the hospital... starting at eleven o'clock this morning. I arrived to learn that she had been taken to the CCU. There I learned that her condition was -- and remains -- very grave.

As I had feared last night, her lungs were filling up with fluid: some internally, and some aspirated when she tried to drink (and, apparently, eat some applesauce). Enough Lasix to help clear out the fluid would damage her kidneys... and it wouldn't clear it all out, in any case. Her breathing was extremely fast and shallow, her heart rate through the roof, her blood pressure spiking. Even receiving oxygen under pressure, her "pulse ox" (dissolved oxygen in her blood) was dangerously low.

Thankfully, she was then aware and responsive enough to make known her desire not to be intubated (respirator w/breathing tube, eating tube, etc.), or to have heroic measures taken to artificially prolong her life. For me as her son, it is hard... but I respect her decision. She is now in a peaceful room (still in the hospital -- we never did get a chance to avail ourselves of hospice), with all her monitors off, with just a regular oxygen mask (with which her O2% had actually come up, after the pressure mask was off), fluid, and such medicines as needed to ease her pains and keep her comfortable.

My brothers and (at different times) both sisters-in-law were able to come and spend time with her, and she/we have had a lot of support from both friends and clergy. I am now taking a brief respite break at home before returning to spend the night with her (my brothers and/or sister-in-law are with her now). There has been reading of poetry, singing of hymns, some laughter, and many prayers. She is very minimally responsive, at best, and it is difficult to gauge her perception, but she appears to be comfortable, or reasonably so under the circumstances.

We were actually expecting her to pass earlier in the day, but she is showing her typical indominable will right up to the end. Notwithstanding, short of a flat-out miracle, it appears that this is the end of her 79 years' journey in this world. And she is entitled to rest. She has fought the good fight against long odds ever since the accident in 1990 that took my father and seriously injured her, and the last year-and-a-half has been especially difficult. The last six months or so in particular. I would have liked to have had her for more years -- ideally, many more years -- but that is not in our purview as mortals to determine. She is in God's hands now, where she really has been all along.

Of your mercy, friends and strangers, please pray for a good and peaceful passing, and strength for our family as we try to adjust to life without her. Myself especially -- I have cared for her for many years, now, and will miss her incredibly. More than I can say.

Tom