Jen Jeffrey Billington: Life without Mama – Phase One

  • Thursday, March 23, 2017
  • Jen Jeffrey Billington
Jen and Mama
Jen and Mama

It has taken some time to even process this first phase of grieving after Mama’s passing and I still may be in that first phase – but now, it is a lot better even if it is still raw.

You see, each person will grieve differently and there is no ‘one way’ to do it. No right way, no wrong way. No one can know what to expect. Do you know why? Because we who are planners would try to orchestrate how our own healing would go and when we think should be over it and, then we only have the ‘head knowledge of our healing over ‘heart knowledge’.

Heart knowledge is that “aha” of when you really understand something because you experience it and know it intimately.

God has taught me this patience over the last decade, yet as a human being traveling this world, I still need reminding with those ‘aha’ moments in which I take time to breathe.

My first ‘aha’ moment was this week.

First, as I ‘planned to heal’ myself quickly and accordingly, I bought a thick journal. I needed to be able to tell Mama my thoughts and feel as though I was with her. I knew it was just for me, but I needed that.

So, I journaled eight pages of ‘that night’ – the night Mama passed.

Mama was diagnosed with Dementia a few years ago but she knew who we all were and lived her last years happily and somewhat independently. What took her was the Leukemia she was diagnosed with a few months ago, coupled with congestive heart failure and other things.

At first, I didn’t believe the doctors when she was diagnosed with Leukemia. She seemed so strong and not ill at all. I felt if she could just get proper nutrition and try natural methods, that our prayers and encouragement would be enough. But I trusted my sisters who talked with Mama’s doctors and they believed she would not be with us long.

It was a roller coaster of emotions because some days Mama looked fine and she was happy and seemed healthy. Other days, she was miserable and it showed that she was in fact dying. Trying to prolong her life and keep here ‘for us’ would be a selfish act, and we all agreed we would not do that.

We saw drastic changes as Mama’s illness progressed rapidly over the next two months. We knew she was dying and that was when I was able to mention it in a previous article.

Traveling back and forth to Chattanooga was hard and when she was in a wheelchair needing constant care, we did not sleep much. My sisters and I took 24 hour shifts.

Packing for what would be my last trip to see Mama, I knew to bring my black dress though it still seemed a guessing game because she still had ‘good days’.

That week, I did not take shifts or stay with my son. I stayed at Mama’s the whole time and didn’t plan on leaving. The day before she passed, we knew it was very close – within hours we thought. The Leukemia was aggressive and causing Mama quite a bit of pain in her joints. So morphine was added to ease her pain and make her most comfortable.

Her grown grandchildren either came to see her or talked to her by phone and all of her daughters were with her. We sang songs around her hospital bed in her living room and we prayed over her. Mama was in and out and we got kisses and hand squeezing, but then… Mama went to sleep.

No, that is not me easing the pain of saying she died – she really was just sleeping, but her body began to shut down. Her brain was first. I knew that she ‘wasn’t there’ anymore because I would hold her hand and she did not hold mine back. Yet, she was still breathing. Then the horrible part came.

Her breathing became a gurgle and we all thought it would be any moment. The fluid in her lungs was literally drowning her and I saw it as ‘suffering’.

For those of who have followed my Mama stories and felt as if you knew her, I don’t want to hurt you, so I will go ahead and say, Mama did not suffer. But at the time, I didn’t know that.

The reason I am sharing such an intimate, personal thing is because God gave me a writer’s voice for those who experience some of the same things I have and need encouragement.

What I saw with my eyes that night was horrifying. To think of my sweet Mama having a difficult time breathing was excruciating to watch. And at first, before even making the trip, I didn’t think I wanted to even be with her when she died. I almost didn’t go to Chattanooga. I wanted my last memory of her to be when she was having good days. But my heart urged me to go mainly to help my exhausted sisters, but once I was there, I knew it was for Mama. I do not regret it – even during that painful night.

Sure, it was hard for me… but it was so good for Mama to have me there. We have always been a close family and it wouldn’t have made sense if I wasn’t there for Mama’s homecoming.

As a Christian, I knew Mama would ‘be in a better place’. I have used those words to comfort others who have lost a dear one, but this… this was MY Mama. Those words I knew didn’t seem to comfort me at the time. Knowing she would be with Jesus didn’t stop my gut from having the stabbing emotional pain of those last few hours.

My sisters and I pleaded out loud to God, “Lord, please have Mercy on our Mama!” We wanted Him to take her at that point. Why wouldn’t God just take her? Why make her go through this? It was hurtful and we sobbed throughout the night.

I stayed at her head either behind the head of her bed or next to her right side. I would get by her ear and whisper, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.” I did that all night long periodically. I sang to her even though she was in a deep sleep.

Nurses will tell people your loved one can still hear you, but at that point when she could not squeeze our hands and didn’t seem to ‘be there’ I don’t think she could. I think she did for a little while in her sleep, but then I believe her brain shut down – God’s protection from the pain, the sting of death. But I thought maybe she could hear me and I saw a tear. I thought it was a tear of ‘emotion’ and so it bothered me greatly to think she was aware while her gurgled breathing was going on.

Her very last breaths were soft and silent.

We went through the motions of the funeral – which is almost a blur, but it was not hard for me to see her in the casket like it was seeing my Daddy. One, because they did her mouth wrong – which I was glad because I needed to be reminded in my foggy brain that she ‘wasn’t there’ and that was not her. My Mama was already with Jesus.

And two, because my Dad passed when he was in his 50s and I was still pretty young – I wasn’t ready. He was taken from a heart attack and that was sudden.

Now that I am in my 50s, I thought grieving over Mama would be easier because she had such a full life and was happy to the end.

It’s not.

In fact, I think this is the hardest process I have gone through. But that is just it… it IS a process. I can’t plan how long I will grieve or when I will let myself grieve. It is a process and it just ‘has to happen’.

And did you know that when you grieve over a parent – you have belly cries? It’s sort of like belly laughs – where it comes from deep within your belly and you cannot control your facial expression, your breath or anything! It just comes and it comes when it wants to – no planning, no controlling and no stifling.

After belly crying for so many days, I thought I was through. The tears invasively come in an instant and without warning and without rhyme or reason. EVERYTHING reminds me of Mama. So at any time, I can be having a great day – then BAM! Tears.

But after I journaled about that horrific night in which I watched my Mama die, I thought I put it away. But it was still there.

So the other day, I was leaving my chiropractors office and he came out after me saying, “Jennifer, the Lord told me to stop you.”

He went on to explain that our bodies cannot heal when we hold onto stress and that grieving is stressful. He said we tend to busy ourselves to try and forget the pain, but that our bodies need us to take time. Time for deep breaths, time to meditate and time to relax.

He saw my need. God used him to help me take time to breathe.

That day, I went on to interview a pastor of the church my family attended while living in Murray during my childhood. I had wanted to talk about Mama’s death with my pastor at the church my husband and I attend, but I have not been able to make the time. So, I asked Pastor Dye after I interviewed him, if we could switch chairs, because I needed his help.

He obliged me and I don’t think I would have had the confidence to ‘do something for me’ toward healing, had Dr. Heskett not stopped me.

I told Pastor Dye about that night and how I could not shake it from my mind. I asked questions I needed to ask, even if I knew the answer – I needed it confirmed.

This helped me so much. Pastor Dye told me I was perceiving that night as if it were MY body. My body was not dying, my body did not have leukemia or dementia and it was not ready for Glory. Mama’s was.

I didn’t need to look at that night as if Mama were suffering, because there were spiritual and scientific reasons that she was not. First and foremost, God was with her the whole way… not just ‘coming for her in the end’. Secondly, He DID show mercy. He was with her and He allowed the pain meds to comfort her (which we also knows slows down the body, so it is easy for the enemy to use this guilt and make you feel you were hurrying your loved ones death – but that is not so).

Mama had Dementia, Leukemia and CHF – she was truly dying and prolonging her life by a few hours or weeks would not have made a difference except maybe cause her more pain. No, I am at peace knowing that we made her comfortable in her last hours.

As far as the last six hours we heard her gurgled breathing – Mama was already gone. No, not her spirit or her life’s breath… but her mind, her awareness – she was not experiencing what we were watching.

Just as when you have surgery and are put to sleep. There are moments when you can hear the goings on around you but you can’t wake up – and there are moments when you do not hear or recall a thing.

Mama was in such a deep sleep, I don’t think she heard or was aware of the last six hours. Jesus had her mind shut down as the rest of her body was shutting down slowly.

I remember that night as horrible as I perceived it – that there was a strange beauty in it and I couldn’t understand that feeling – but it was there. Morbid beauty? How can those two words coincide?

I am not talking about the beauty of knowing Mama was now with Jesus and so it’s all better now… those were just the words I knew in my head.

But to experience watching Mama’s life passing from this earth, was strangely beautiful. That moment when she ‘crossed over’.

People say “they passed away”… away where? Do they know? Where was Mama that very moment? I recalled the scripture, “…to be absent from the body is to be with Christ” – I believed that, but I had not experienced that knowledge with my heart - just my head.

Now that it was so very personal and I witnessed life leaving her body… in that very moment, I heard my thoughts say, “What you are seeing right now is not a life passing to death… it is death passing to Life.”

Mama’s body was ready for Glory. Her body was transitioning. It is a scientific process for the body to transition but also a spiritual one and that makes sense because God created everything and science is part of it all. So her earthly body may have been transitioning in death, but her spirit was transitioning to life.

And that, was beautiful.

After talking with the pastor and realizing Mama did not suffer, I see the whole night differently. It wasn’t horrible. Mama didn’t pass away… she passed on. Onto a new life!

Phase one of healing: No guilt, she did not suffer, and she IS with Jesus.

Finding Mama’s many bibles in the house afterward were full of her writings and showing how very faithful she was.

Shhh… listen… I can almost hear the Lord saying “Well done.”

 

jen@themurraymirror.com

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