The Deaths of my Parents

If you were to ask 20 year old Jill if she thought she would be writing an online journal about her life in her 20s and including an entry about her parents’ death, she would think you’re crazy. Her parents had always been there for her and they would continue to witness special moments in her life. They would live to spoil grandchildren. They would buy that RV they’ve always wanted and travel around the country. If you do see 20 year old Jill, tell her she’s naive. Also, tell her to hug her parents and say that she loves them.

In December of 2002, my father was diagnosed with mesothelioma. The bravest, strongest man I knew was really sick. It was hard for me to fathom such a giant of a man withering. I couldn’t understand that he was going into the hospital and that he would need chemotherapy. It was absolutely bizarre.

Before he was to start chemo, my mother and I buzzed off his hair and bought him “skull caps” so he’d “look like a bad ass.”

My father was sent home from the hospital and since I didn’t have classes on Fridays, I volunteered to take my father to his radiation appointments. I appreciated this one on one time with him, but it was hard to be strong. He was always a happy guy and I rarely saw him without a smile. One day on our drive to the clinic, I could see he was defeated. He just asked me to run my car into a telephone pole. I wanted to break down and cry, but I couldn’t let him see me like that. So in Wells fashion I tried to joke my way through the pain. “I’ve already wrapped one car around a telephone pole,” I said, “I really don’t want to go through that mess again. He chuckled.

I was thinking that the chemo and the radiation had to work. It had to make him better. I trusted the doctors and wanted them to save the man I loved so much.

My brother Jeff and I were both to graduate from Miami University that May. My father worked at a steel meal for over 30 years so that he could support a family and put my brothers and I through college. I wanted him at my graduation so that he could see what he worked so hard for. He couldn’t go. Although he wasn’t in the hospital, he was too sick to go.

About a week after Jeff and I got our diplomas, my father was sent back to the hospital. He was in so much pain and he looked awful after having lost so much weight and his face was sunken. I didn’t even recognize him.

My mother asked for a cot so that she could sleep every night in his room at the hospital. She never left his side. She loved my father. During the whole ordeal, she never cried. She never showed vulnerability. She wanted to be strong for my father since he couldn’t be strong for himself.

It was the afternoon when I told my mother to get some fresh air. She needed a break from that hospital room. She did finally leave to go get something from the truck. I took advantage of that moment and crawled into bed with my father. He was basically in a medicinal coma to help him with the pain. I told him it was ok to go. I said we would be fine and that I would take care of mom. He should be proud of the three kids he raised. I kissed him on his cheek and crawled out of the bed before my mother returned.

That night I wanted to be with my friends. I needed a moment to just be young and silly, so I went to the Walter Ego practice space in downtown Middletown. It was a Tuesday night, so of course they were having a party. Joel could tell that I wasn’t my usual self so he asked about my father. I told him that my father was dying, and that I said it was ok because we would be fine. I didn’t feel much like partying, so I went home to my bed.

I was awoken a few hours later by the house phone and noticed that I had several missed calls on my cell phone. I jumped up and ran to the kitchen to answer the phone. It was a nurse from the hospital who said my mother was trying to get a hold of me. I knew why.

I arrived at the hospital in record time to see my cousin Patty, my father’s niece, and my mother in his hospital room. My mother was holding my father’s hand and crying. This was the first time I had seen her shed a tear since his diagnosis. I had only seen her cry two times before. The first was when her father died and the second was when Brandy’s brother Dusty died. I was too numb to cry myself and since I was my mother’s daughter, I couldn’t cry because I had to be strong for her.

My brothers soon arrived to the hospital. Joe, the oldest, went into older brother mode. He wanted to take care of things so my mother wouldn’t have to be burdened with the business details of death. He signed paperwork and set up the autopsy. He wanted proof that it was asbestos that caused our father’s mesothelioma.

I like to think that he heard me that day when I told him we’d be ok without him. I just wanted his pain and agony to stop and that he shouldn’t hang on just for us. I couldn’t be selfish.

Me and my daddy my senior year of High School

Just over a year went by before I was to say goodbye to another parent.

My mother had MS, but she was positive and still lived life to the fullest. When she started having problems, we attributed it to the July heat affecting her. The symptoms were worse than usual, so I took her to the hospital.

The ER drugged her up to help with the pain she was having. She was quite hilarious on drugs singing along to the Kung Fu Fighting song on the Geico commercial. In between her singing, the ER doctors believed she had diverticulitis and would need to be admitted. It didn’t sound like a dire diagnosis. It wouldn’t have been.

During the tests the doctors learned it wasn’t diverticulitis. They found a mass in her uterus which meant surgery. I did not like where this was going.

The surgery was scheduled right away. I was lucky to have a very understanding boss who actually went to high school with my dad. He let me have time off to do whatever I needed.

I stayed in the waiting room with my brother and my mother’s friend Becky while she underwent her surgery. We laughed and joked while Becky told stories about my mother. Our jovial time was interrupted when the surgeon, Dr. Cox, came in to update us. He addressed me.

Dr. Cox told me that the mass in her uterus was a sarcoma. I couldn’t handle it and burst into tears. I couldn’t go through cancer again. Becky calmed me down so Dr. Cox could finish. He said the sarcoma came off easily and that was a good sign. I let out a sigh of relief. They ended up giving her a hysterectomy.

My mother would be moved up to a room once she was out of recovery. When I greeted her in her new room she had tubes hanging out of her nose to drain the fluid from the area where her uterus once was. It was a bit freakish.

I learned that they would give my mother chemotherapy a month after surgery. They had to wait that long to ensure that it healed before pumping her full of chemicals.

My mother was positive about her diagnosis and carried on with her funny self. I would take her to her oncology appointments and we would joke about wigs we would get her when she lost her hair. She wanted to be a red head. Then i noticed a brochure in the waiting room for turbans. My mom thought she would look cool in a turban. They even had velcro bangs. That made mom really excited and she wanted a turban in every color.

We had thought we were in the clearing and that mom was on her way to a full recovery. Then she fell in the living room. She had MS, so she fell quite often, but she had ripped the stitches from her surgery so we had to take back to the hospital. She also had internal bleeding, so Dr. Cox had to go back in.

Dr. Cox made a horrible discovery. During the surgery he found that she had ripped the stitches internally and beyond the ripped stitches was more cancer. It had spread.

A sarcoma is a tricky bastard. It’s ruthless and it’s aggressive. With another surgery, my mother would have to restart the clock to when she would be able to have chemo. She wouldn’t live long enough to have chemo.

After recovery from the surgery, she was released to go home. She had plans. She wasn’t going to let the cancer ruin her plans. She wanted to go to Kentucky to see her aunt Eunice. She really wanted to meet Kaiden Hunter, Becky’s grandchild. She got to do both.

It wasn’t long before she was in the hospital again and for the last time.

I took extra long lunch breaks to visit her. I would see her after work and before play practice. I wanted to make sure she had company, but with such a wonderful extended family and great friends, she was never alone. When she asked me to, I would spend the night in her hospital room. She would have done the same for me.

I didn’t hang out with the cast and crew of Plaza Suite on opening night. Instead, I met my brothers and cousin Julie at my mother’s hospital room. Joe had taken off work and had been running around getting things together for mom and visiting her. When I arrived I told him to go home to get some sleep. He reluctantly left.

The three of us who were left in the room tried to keep our spirits up with silly stories, but it was hard for me to concentrate on anything but my mother’s labored breathing. I moved over to her bedside and I held her hand.  Each breath was slower than the last and seemed more of an effort.  I squeezed her hand tighter.  She was DNR.

I can't say if I felt her soul leave her body or just a wave a relief when I knew that her last breath meant that she was finally out of pain, but I did feel something rush through me.  It was comforting.

We called for the nurse and she came in to verify that my mother had indeed passed.  No breath.  No heartbeat.  She was gone.  Joe had only left maybe 20 minutes before.  I felt guilty for telling him to leave, but I was not anticipating her passing away that evening.

When Joe arrived he walked over to my mother's body and touched her in away to examine for himself that she did actually passed away.  All he said was, "Yup," and he backed away.  There wasn't really anything we could do, so we left the room.  I hadn't cried since the day in the surgical waiting room, but the finality of it all and the notion that I was an orphan hit me hard as I was walking down the hospital hallway.  Joe had to catch me. 

I don't know how I got home.  It was all a blur.  I walked into my apartment and collapsed on the floor.  Jaeret came running to see what was going on.  All I could do was ask for Brandy and since it was two in the morning, she was asleep.  Jaeret went in and woke her up.  She came to me and held me while I cried.

I don't know if I called him or if Brandy or Jaeret did, but Monroe came over to be with me.  He held me all night in my bed as I cried. 

My momma and me at my graduation from Miami.

It has been a rough decade without them.  There are so many times when I needed them and there will be so many more times.  They made me the woman I am today and I am thankful for that.  Yes I am incredibly pissed that they were taken away from me at such a young age.  Yes I get furious when I feel someone doesn't respect their parents.  I can't let it bring me down.  I was raised by two positive and happy people.  They wouldn't want me to have sadness in my heart.  I have to realize that there are people on this earth who never had parents as wonderful as mine or parents at all.  This makes me realize I am lucky to have had them a part of my life for as long as I did.

They will continue to be a part of my life.