Haunting and Healing

****TRIGGER WARNING**** This blog visually describes my mom's dying days. 

Grief is confusing in so many ways. For me, one of the strangest parts has been the urge to look at a picture of my mom taken during her last days, while she was hospitalized. It's not an easy photo to look at, and yet, I've looked at it probably a million times since she died.

I remember the day I took the photo as if it happened yesterday - Mom had just been intubated the day before because she couldn’t keep her oxygen levels up. Despite the cancer spreading ferociously throughout her body, she was being given a clinical trial drug that the doctors figure had a 50% chance of tackling the cancer enough for her to get off the ventilator, come home, and be with us. Despite all the IV lines for her medications, the breathing tube down her throat, and the NG tube down her nose, she actually looked better than she had in days. She had been deoxygenated and unable to sleep properly for at least a week at that time, and her skin colour had been slowly fading each day. After taking some of the pressure off of her lungs with the ventilator, it was like her body was able to rest a little bit, and her colour came back. Mom was awake and smiled at us as soon as we came into the room. She was able to communicate with us via pen and notebook or texting.

Mom wrote to me and said, “Take a picture. I want to see everything... but not now, when I’m better.” So she mustered a tiny tube-smile, and I took a picture. My mom was so brave and so optimistic. Her request for a picture “for when I’m better” shows her hope even amid so much uncertainty. It’s no wonder that I had such a hard time accepting that my mom was dying - despite all the obvious, scary signs right in front of me. We all had so much hope that she was going to beat the odds and be better soon.

Obviously, Mom never got better, so I never showed her the picture. But I’ve looked at it probably a million times now. Why would I want to be reminded of the days leading up to the one I lost my mom? Why would I want to remember her sick instead of happy and healthy, like all the rest of the photos I have? I’ve wanted to delete the picture, but I can’t. Instead, I’ve looked at it over and over and over again.

With time, I think I’ve realized that the picture is a way for me to grapple with the reality that my mom died, especially because her illness progressed so quickly. I sometimes wonder if looking at the picture has been my mind’s attempt to make sense of the trauma I experienced - it still feels like she was fine one day and dying the next. I’ve realized that I can’t ignore those pictures, or even those thoughts, and only look at the happy ones. I have to honour that painful chapter because it is part of my reality.

I think my relationship with this picture has changed over time. It used to make me cry the big, ugly cry. And now, it reminds me of my mom’s bravery, her strength, and all that she endured. She wanted to live. She wanted to live so, so, so very badly. She would have done anything to live because of her love for all of us.

I still don’t know if I’ll ever stop looking at the picture. It’s haunting and healing all at once - a reminder of her strength and the depth of our love, even through the hardest moments. It holds both the pain of losing her and the comfort of knowing she fought so hard to stay. The picture is proof of both her fight and my own, even when facing the unimaginable.

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