At this time 24 years ago, I knew you were going to die the next day. It was a very surreal experience to know 24 hours from that moment you would no longer be here on earth with us. Although we had known this day was coming for 10 months, now that it was here, we were not ready.
It was the third day of fourth grade. I had been going about the day as usual when I swore I saw Mom run out of the building. Per usual, she had been volunteering in Kindergarten because they had never let her move on once I did because she was so great at helping the five year olds practice reading. I knew then something was wrong. About an hour later, I was pulled out of school by one of our neighbors. We were stopped outside of the school by a Girl Scout mom who ironically asked how you were doing. The neighbor quickly responded, “We have to go.” Further confirmation something had shifted and was definitely wrong.
We drove in her car to the big hospital, not the small hospital across the street where you had spent the last 10 months living. Now I know this isn’t good. The neighbor and I walked into the ER, she asked the nurse for Mom, and she quickly came to get me, her face red and full of tears. My mind goes into full on panic mode. “Bryna, this is it.”
I’m not sure what words she exactly used after that. All I could see was that you were being tended to by many professionals. I was used to scenes like this. I’d spent my whole life in the hospital with you. It was our second home. Countless procedures, surgeries, physical therapy sessions, and more, but I knew this was different. The panic. The tubes. It was all different.
Eventually, I regained some sort of dazed 9 year old consciousness and they got you up to a room in the ICU. It was explained to me that you were on life support and the only things keeping you alive were the machines and my mom had made the decision to remove life support the next day once your family could be there with us to say goodbye.
Mom spent as much time with you as possible, I spent as much time escaping the ICU room as possible and finding solace in Grammy’s arms. Throughout your whole illness, she was my only place I felt calm. People came in and out. At some point, someone took Grammy and me home so we could sleep in our beds while Mom stayed at the hospital with you. I hope someone stayed with Mom, but I doubt she let anyone.
There were calls and conversations because plans had to start being made about what came next. Out of town family started to make their way in town for services for someone who had not died yet. But you would be. Because we knew it would happen. Tomorrow.
No one talks about this gap of time that happens when you know your person is going to die. This technical part that if it weren’t for machines they would already be dead. Knowing that when you woke up the next day you knew you would have to say goodbye. You knew for absolute certainty that would be the last time you saw them. Many people, us included, have lived in a state of uncertainty with loved ones with illnesses, on hospice, and with older family members that never know if that goodbye is the last. This in itself I could write a whole post about how that creates PTSD symptoms and anxiety. But this, KNOWING, this is different. And we never talk about it, even though so many of us have felt it. I’ve never talked about it. Not even with Mom before she died. The absolute dread. It’s awful. This is the part I remember feeling. Alone. In my room with my dolls and stuffed animals at 9 years old. The night before you died.