It has been a little over four months since my Mom passed away. My mother was my last surviving parent. I guess you can say I am now an orphan.
I live in South Florida and my mother resided in our family home, on Long Island, that I grew up in. Recently, our family home, which had been in our family for 60 years, was sold, so now I am homeless and orphaned. My mom was in fairly good health most of her 88 years, and rarely was seriously ill. However, her health did start to slowly deteriorate about two years ago. My Dad died about 3 years before, and my mom lived independently at their home, and was still driving, up until about five months before she passed. Even though I have my own home in South Florida, going back to my family home was always a special feeling for me. This was the place that not only connected me to our town, Oceanside, but was the place I experienced so much of what growing up as a Baby Boomer meant.
When I frequently went back to NY to visit my Mom, I usually stayed in the family house, which now seemed strangely empty and barren without my parents. When my brother, sister, and I were growing up, the house seemed fairly large. However, besides that empty feeling, the house was actually much smaller than I thought. Of course, when I went back to my high school for a visit many years ago, I could not get over how small the hallways seemed now, compared to when I attended as a student.
I tend to be a nostalgic person, so the memories more or less flooded my mind when I went back home.
For the last four months of her life, my mom was in a nursing rehab center on Long Island. She always talked about going home to her house, but my sister, brother, and I always knew that desire was an extreme long shot at best. Although there were times when my mom seemed to be making real progress and getting stronger, there was always the inevitable setback. Unfortunately, it was the old cliché of one step forward, two steps back. In some cases it seemed like three steps back.
The last few months of her life were not very pleasant. Although she was conscious and alert, she needed help with just about everything a person could do, from dressing, eating, toileting, walking, etc. The last two weeks of her life, she was there physically; bet mentally she was off somewhere else. We all felt helpless, but all we could do, was be there for her. My mom certainly was afraid of death, as I am sure most of us are, she never liked to discuss it in any manner, even toward the end when we all knew it was just a matter of time.
Finding the papers for her legal and financial affairs was no small feat. Fortunately, her father had purchased a family burial plot, which contained her parents, siblings, and their respective spouses, including my father. The loss of a parent can have a profound effect on their children, but when the last surviving parent passes, you realize that an era has ended and there is no going back. When the sale of our family home took place, about three months after my mom passed, literally overnight, I lost my refuge and contact with the town I considered home and were my roots for 60 years. I suddenly felt as if I were in space tethered to my space station, and suddenly, through no fault of my own cut adrift. I was drifting through space and felt strangely disconnected from everything I held dear. The inevitable end of this era of my life was difficult to accept. It seemed surreal that things could change so dramatically and suddenly, but yet they had. Despite the sadness of the situation, I did learn many things about my family, and especially about the things one needs to be aware of, when a parent or loved one is in a situation such as this. The reality is that it affects everyone in the family, not just the parent or person that is experiencing the end of their life!