The first to leave Susan was her grandmother. She had hung on as long as she could, but when the body is tired and your soul is thing, you have to let go. It was devastating to her and the family. Their grandmother held everyone together. She made sure everyone always had what they needed.
A bit of time passed after that but not much. Out of the blue, her mother got sick and had to be put in the hospital. It wasn’t the first time so no one thought it would be her last trip there. It was. She never got better. Pretty soon she wasn’t able to respond to anything or anyone.
Susan stayed by her bed. This couldn’t be happening. They had just begun to have a good relationship even though it wasn’t perfect yet. There was so much still needing to be said and done. So many regrets yet to fix.
When Susan, her sister and their aunt finally decided she was gone even though the body continued, they made the call to unplug her life support. It was the hardest choice they ever made. As she watched her mother fade away, Susan’s world crashed around her. She couldn’t breathe and didn’t even want to. She wanted her back! They still had a movie they had wanted to watch together. There were still hugs to be exchanged. This couldn’t be real.
But it was…
The house now felt too quiet, too organized. Her mother’s door loomed before her from across the hallway. There was no way she would go in there. She couldn’t. So, it sat empty of life and laughter.
She and her sister had learned to suppress emotions. It is the only way they survived their childhood. This? This couldn’t be suppressed. Hopefully time would help.
Of course, life seemed to be a twisted psycho in Susan’s world. No more than a couple months later, her father passed away. This was not a surprise. The quickness was. He had developed Lou Gehrig’s disease. She had heard it took you fast but this fast?
Luckily, Susan and her sister had just gone to spend time with him and their stepfamily. They both got to say what they wanted and needed. He even was having a “good” day that day. They both needed that, but it still didn’t prepare them for the heartache.
They had just lost their mother and now their father. Soon their stepmother because she was showing signs of Dementia. Instead of focusing on that, this time she would treat the upcoming loss as she did her father. Spending time with her stepmother as much as possible. That was another regret to add to her list concerning her mother.
Throughout Susan’s life, she had to face some pretty horrible things. These things made her who she was. Whether that was a good thing or not was still up for debate. She had her children, her sister and her aunt. That is what she needed to be focused on now. Was their pain in all this loss? Absolutely. Were there things she wished she had done differently? Definitely.
The loss continued to hurt but the other stuff? It made her strong. It made her a survivor. This and what she still had was how she would continue. She would survive and make sure her children did as well. In the end, that was all she could ask for. To embrace who she was and make sure her children were happy, safe, and successful. Nothing else mattered.
-End-
