Sea Me $400 (Framed in a maple frame)
12″ x 9″ Ink and Watercolor
July has been a terribly sad and extremely busy month. On July 3rd my mom passed away at the age of 88. I was fortunate to be there at the time and had called an ambulance a day before she died as it was clear to me she was in far more pain than she should have been for her diagnosis. She had been complaining of severe back and stomach pain and her doctor sent her to an orthopedist in April, but the pain got to be too much and she had my 92-year-old aunt take her to the ER where she lives. The ER did a CAT scan which indicated a highly suspicious pancreatic mass. The ER staff never told me this when I called to ask what the findings were. They said she had diverticulitis. Her doctor never read the CAT scan report so unfortunately we did not know that she had pancreatic cancer and were not all able to get up to be with her and have the opportunity to help her through her final days. Fortunately our son went to help her out for several days and thought I should come when he left. This is all so sad and frustrating as my son took her to a doctor appointment about a week before she died and my sister was on speaker phone to the doctor and asking questions if it could be anything more. The doctor stated it was diverticulitis and so we assumed that was what was going on.
Sometimes though things happen that softens the sadness. When my husband and I pulled up to the ER in the middle of the night after the doctor called me, we saw a large deer walking very slowly in front of the hospital door. It walked in front of our car and stopped and looked at us. I immediately thought of my dad and his love for deer and felt his presence. I thought maybe he was helping to bring her with him. When we got upstairs we learned she had passed away peacefully a few minutes before. We spent some time saying goodbye. No one had thought my mom was that close to death. She had been quite herself and active the entire day. She did get her wish to die in her sleep but we are all grieving her loss. When we went to leave the hospital we saw a doe wandering in a field. I can’t help but think that this was my mom going off to meet my dad.
This is my mom around the time of her high school graduation,
