Powerful spirit

This is the first time I’ve been this close to someone who is about to die. I’ve wondered if and how I would know when Momma’s spirit makes the transition. If I were sitting and watching, I’d surely know; I’d see her breathing stop.

Perhaps there would be other signs. Like a few days ago, when Sis and her partner were in Mom’s room and the TV turned on every time Mom tried to speak. The first time it happened, they turned the TV off, but then Mom spoke again, and the TV turned back on. Both times it was not on a channel, just gray fuzz.

The next day when I was with Mom, she raised her arms toward the TV on the wall and tried to sit up. She said, “I’ve got to go up there.” I said, “Don’t worry, Mom. You’ll be going up there soon.” But it was only later that I connected “up there” with the TV and the gray fuzz.

At this moment I’m in Dad’s apartment in the building next to Mom’s nursing center. It’s about 1:00 a.m. and I can’t sleep. I got up to empty my bladder, and when I went back to bed, I had a pain in my back, between my shoulder blades, so intense I thought I was having a heart attack.

I don’t really believe it’s a heart attack. But I won’t be surprised to soon hear that Momma has passed. I can believe that she’s grabbing me, holding on for dear life, as her own heart races and then stops. Sis and her partner are with Mom, to assure her that it’s OK to go when it’s time. I’d be there, too, but I’m afraid to leave Dad alone. Perhaps I’m imagining all of this, but when I listen to him breathing, I’m hearing an unusual restlessness, some undecipherable talking in his sleep, and I wonder if Mom is grabbing at him, too.

Sue