“Unlike optimism, which is tied to a specific outcome, home believes that everything will be all right despite the outcome.” Dr Robyne Hanley-Dafoe
If you’ve read my newsletters for any length of time you know back in July of 2024 we lost my mom after a 59 day battle. It was terrible, hard, and although there were many lessons I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy.
She fought hard. The nurses called her a warrior. She hung on. We all did, clinging to the hope that she was going to pull out of it. But nothing in life is guaranteed. After 53 days in the hospital and 6 at home in hospice she left us.
Something I share with clients is that your character is revealed outside of your comfort zone. Who you are gets exposed when you are uncomfortable. My mom was uncomfortable for nearly two months and not once did I hear a cross word with a nurse or a poor me remark. She had tremendous character.
I was in the room when she made the decision to go home and into hospice. After yet another in what was a ridiculous series of setbacks and bounce backs her illness just became too much. I’ll never forget being in the room with her while the surgeon who was with us every step of the way informed her of her options.
“Ma’am if you were my mom I would tell you that we can increase the quantity of your life but the quality is going to continue to deteriorate. If you were my mom I would encourage you to strongly consider hospice.”
When he said that my heart ballooned so big it felt like I couldn’t swallow.
“Mom whatever decision you make we are with you. If you want to fight we will fight. We will honor whatever decision you make.”
“I want to go home” was all she said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes.”
We quickly made the arrangements and had her home the next day. Laying in bed the first night of hospice upstairs at my parents house I was in utter confusion. For the past two months we all coached her to not give up hope. To keep going. “We are going to take this one challenge at a time. Let’s just focus on what is in front of us” was the mantra I repeated to her through it all. Then in a single conversation the hope flipped from “hold on” to “let go”. It was painful and confusing.
Coaching her to let go felt like such a betrayal. Like I was turning on her. The feeling was indescribable. For two months hope meant hold on. Suddenly hope meant let go. My mind and my heart could not catch up with the shift.
On Tuesday, July 16th with only her and I in her bedroom I watched her take her last breath.
I would love to tell you that I took time and space to process and grieve. I didn’t. The funeral was Saturday. I was back home Sunday and back to the office Monday trying desperately to make up for all the lost time I had with my clients during the time I was out. At the time I was telling myself that I owed it to them. That they dealt with my absence and it was only fair for me to come back quickly. But honestly they would’ve given me another week. I have the best clients in the world. They understood what I was going through. But I allowed the pathological performer in me to take the wheel and plunged myself back into work and didn’t come up for air for nearly two weeks when I went back home to see my dad.
What I wasn’t prepared for when I got back to his house for the first time is that I would relive everything that happened again. The second I pulled in the driveway it all came flooding back. All the grief I hadn’t allowed, all the sadness I stuffed down. All of it hit me at once. When I walked into the house I felt like there was no air in it. Like I was an astronaut on the moon who had taken off his helmet. I couldn’t breathe. I immediately stepped out on the back patio and sat in the silence doing my best to keep it together for everyone else there.
While out there my dad joined me. I looked at him and thought “Is he going to want to go on? Will life still feel like living to him?” We didn’t say anything for what felt like an hour. How do you talk to the person who just lost the love of his life? What questions do you ask? What topic do you discuss? Looking at me, talking through tears, he broke the silence with “This is going to get easier.”
There it was. Hope. Beautiful life giving hope. An expectation that although this feels unbearable now this will get easier. Hearing that from him made relief flood through my body.
Hope may not be a strategy but it can be a savior.
It’s been almost a year and a half now since she left us. We’ve gone through all the firsts without her; first birthdays, holidays, and get togethers. It will never be normal. Just us evolving through the process of establishing a new normal. But through it all one thing that has made it feel a little more bearable is the hope that promises this will get easier.
And maybe that is the real gift my mom left behind. People say hope isn’t a strategy, but I am starting to believe that might be incomplete. Hope does not solve the problem in front of you, but it strengthens the person facing it.
The hope that gave her peace is the same hope that is slowly teaching us how to live again.
live freed,
Jordan
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