LESSONS IN ANGER MANAGEMENT
May 10, 2009
By Mary Koch

            My family is gathered in Tacoma, some traveling from far parts of the country, to observe our final Mother’s Day with our matriarch, my mom.  

            When Mother was given the diagnosis – ovarian cancer – she opted for what is euphemistically called “comfort care” only. No chemo. No radiation.

            “Ninety-two is a good time to go,” she’s been telling us. She’s outlived her siblings, her husband, and many of her friends. When asked, she told a hospice social worker that the thing most important to her now is her faith. 

            The answer apparently wasn’t enough for the social worker, who later asked me, “Besides her faith, what does she use to get through difficult times?”

            “ ‘Besides her faith!?’ ” I echoed, dumfounded. “What else does she need?”

            As the cancer progressed, Mom told me over and over: “This isn’t bad. I thought it would be worse.”

            Then it got worse. Pain management is not a precise science. Mother’s medications are adjusted daily in hopes of finding the magic formula to alleviate the pain without turning her into a zombie.  

            I’m angry with God about the pain. Seems to me, she’d had more than her share already: three births and a miscarriage, polio, a needless hysterectomy, two inoperable aneurisms that gave her permanent double vision, and finally, last year, a broken neck. That she survived such a thing at age 91 was nothing short of a miracle.

            The aneurisms were discovered in her carotid artery a few years back, and since then we’ve been anticipating – with dread – the scenario lined out by the neurosurgeon: There’d be an explosion in her brain, “the worst headache of your life,” and she’d die. I’d prefer she – not to mention myself – would die while sleeping peacefully in her own bed. Even so, a sudden, fatal stroke would be preferable to cancer.

            Just as with the neurosurgeon, we asked the oncologist what to expect. He explained that Mom would grow gradually weaker over the “months” to come and eventually die.

            “You may not even have any pain,” the doctor said. I wrote that in my notes, word for word, as if it were some kind of money-back guarantee. Within a few short weeks, I received a phone message: Don’t wait until Mother’s Day to return.

            Mother is holding on for Mother’s Day, but not without suffering.

            I can’t remember ever being this angry with God. I was furious when my husband suffered a stroke and paralysis, but I deflected that anger, targeting the health care system, medical insurance and whoever else had the bad luck to cross my path. Venting my anger that way was like throwing a ball at a brick wall; it just comes right back at you, faster and harder.

            It is far more healing to be angry with the divine. God absorbs my rage, and instead of returning it with cosmic force, embraces me with comfort and love.

            I know that’s how it works, because it’s what my mother taught me.

DID YOU HEAR THE ONE ABOUT …
May 17, 2009
By Mary Koch

            It strikes me funny, how often we find a reason to laugh as death approaches. During these final weeks of my mother’s life, each day unfolds with as much laughter as tears. Sometimes more.

            Now that medications have finally got Mother’s pain more or less under control, there’s time and space for humor. This journey toward death makes us more keenly alert to life. That irony alone is enough to amuse heaven’s angels. With a good laugh comes deeper breathing; the body and heart are energized and strengthened for what is to come.

             Mother joins our laughter. Her speech is a mere whisper, the words slurred and often incomprehensible. Nonetheless, she summons adequate clarity to utter an occasional wisecrack that fits the moment: “Well, FI-nally!” or “I doubt THAT!” or – from this lifelong lady of refinement – an extended, rumbling belch. The welcome burp eases the pressure of cancerous fluids in her abdomen. Ironic that it tends to occur just after I’ve said something (in my opinion alone) profound.

            We laugh at the inevitable screw-ups that happen when we’re trying to do everything so perfectly in this hospice-like environment. It’s like farting in church; we are human, after all.           There’s the laughter that comes with 92 years worth of stories. The stories don’t need retelling; we all know them, but we grab at any opportunity to say, “That’s like the time …” and we’re off.

            On the last day of my brother’s visit, we found ourselves in a ridiculous, Keystone Cops-style paper chase, driving cross-town town through the rain, double-dotting the i’s and triple-crossing the t’s in the arrangements Mother had already astutely made. It was a welcome distraction from thinking about the difficult, final goodbye he and his wife would be saying in a few hours before returning to North Carolina.

            I arrived at Mother’s a little over a week ago, planning to stay a week. As soon as I got here, I knew I wasn’t going home again until her journey is complete.

            There is not adequate staff in Mother’s assisted living facility to provide the 24/7 care she requires, so we’re hiring caregivers from an agency. For the most part that’s gone well, but for the morning shift, the agency sent someone who had none of the skills – transferring, positioning, bathing and feeding – that Mother required. And I, a veteran caregiver, did. Worse, that particular caregiver cooed baby-talk to my mother, who has a master’s degree in education.

            I’d like to say that I took her place in the caregiving rotation because I recognized my need to enrich my relationship with Mother by tending to her in her final days. I’d like to say that, but I can’t. What I was really thinking was, “We’re paying twenty bucks an hour for THIS!?”

            God has a sneaky way of appealing to our so-called practical nature. It’s a ruse, a gentle nudge to get us doing the real work of the soul. And I have to laugh.

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