A Broken Heart

With all this talk of motherhood and becoming a new mom myself, I can't help but think about my own mom. I feel like I talk about her quite a bit! But then again, I don't feel like I talk about her enough. To be honest, her passing is still pretty hard for me. So this post is going to be about her, both in life and in death.

Whenever I'd hear about someone who had lost a parent, my heart ached for them. I couldn't imagine the pain they were feeling, and to have such a great loss must have been such a devastating thing for them to feel. Trying to console someone who has lost someone so close to them is a difficult thing. You don't want to say or do the wrong thing. So when it actually happened to me, I didn't know how to feel, or what emotions would come next. I didn't know how to talk to the people who were trying their best to help.

Let me back it up a little and talk about before my mom passed.
My mom was an amazing person. Most people remember her for her generosity and kindness. She would literally give you all the food in her fridge, the clothes off her back, and anything else that you may stand in need of! I remember her that way too of course. But I also got to see sides of her that most people didn't know existed. She had such a quirky personality. She joked around and laughed a lot, but it was about weird stuff. You just had to get her humor. She danced and sang for our two dogs Patch and Ella, and I loved watching her do that. She loved the food network, and shows like NCIS and Charmed. Whenever she laughed, my brother, sister and I couldn't help but laugh too. She didn't have a hearty laugh very often, so whenever it happened it was so cute and funny. Most times she would just giggle and chuckle. That was cute too.

Our mom also had a lot of underlying issues. Health wise she was diagnosed with Lupus when Emily, my youngest sister, was about 5. Not long after, she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Both of which made her very sick, all the time. She was in and out of the hospital for the majority of our lives. But on top of that, she suffered severely form depression. My mom was raised in a Korean orphanage until she was about 9, where she was beaten and neglected. So obviously the issues that stuck with her from such a traumatic childhood would surface in some way or another as she got older. The problem was that she self medicated with alcohol.

Growing up with an alcoholic parent was hard. My brother, sister and I were told not to talk about it to other people. So we basically lived with a secret, and I felt like whenever I tried to talk to people about it, they thought I was lying. I still feel like that now actually. I feel like whoever reads this will think I'm lying about something that truly happened. I don't even know how to accurately describe what it was like. But it was hard. There were lots of fights, sleepless nights, packing and leaving, coming back to the same thing, dumping out vodka bottles, crying, hoping, wishing. My mom spent the entire month of June in rehab when I was 8, I remember that specifically because my birthday is June 14th, and I couldn't understand why she wasn't there. I remember coming home from elementary once, and finding her on the kitchen floor in a puddle of vomit. I saw lots of things that kids shouldn't have to. I begged my mom to choose me instead of alcohol, and watched time and time again as she chose alcohol over me. That was devastating. My brother, sister, myself and even my dad have a lot of characteristics that we developed from living with an alcoholic. No one will understand either, unless they've lived with one too. It's a difficult thing, it's a family disease.

I know that a lot of that is personal stuff. But I was so ashamed and used to not telling anyone anything all growing up, that now I feel a kind of freedom in being able to express how I feel now. It's a liberating feeling. I used to have so many negative feeling towards my mom and her alcoholism. But when she was sober I loved her so much! Looking back now, I see how difficult things were for her. I wish I could have helped more.

My mom's liver had been in bad shape for quite some time. With all the drinking she did, it wasn't much of a surprise. She had been hospitalized many times to have her stomach drained from all the liquid it was secreting. So in July 2011 when she needed to go to the hospital to have it drained again, we had all kind of expected it. My dad drove her to Davis Hospital where she stayed for a few days, being drained. But she started to get worse. Then she slipped into a kind of coma, from the high levels of toxicity in her body. They transferred her to the U of U hospital, and that's when we knew things were pretty serious. She stayed in the ICU for a couple of weeks there. But they were able to bring her out of her coma and things were really looking up! She was talking again, joking around, she was herself! So they decided to transfer her to South Davis Medical Center in Bountiful. There she did some physical therapy and we thought she would be able to come home soon. Honestly I think they pushed her too hard, I don't think her frail body was ready for physical therapy yet.

She was getting so exhausted. On a Tuesday, she was so tired, I could just see it in her face. I was the last one to visit her that day, and as I was leaving I told her to take a nap and rest. I still remember looking back at her and watching her fall asleep. The next day my dad, brother, sister and I went to visit her as we did everyday. When we got there, she was curled up in a ball (how she usually slept) but she had thrown up. So we asked the nurses to come in and help clean her up and change her sheets. They asked us to step out, so we did. One of the nurses came out and said, "She didn't wake up at all when we changed her sheets, we think she's in another coma and want to transfer her back to the U." When we went back in I saw her laying here and I started crying. I could see how different she looked. Her spirit wasn't with her anymore, and I could sense it. I don't think the rest of my family saw that yet, but I knew. While she was being transferred to the U, her condition worsened so quickly that they had her put on life support by the time we arrived at the hospital. It felt like years till they let us back to see her.

I remember it so vividly, they led us into this really cold room, and we saw her with tubes down her throat. They removed all her jewelry then, I haven't taken her necklace or ring off since. They told us to brace ourselves. After being there for what seemed like forever, we went home to get some sleep and we would come back the next morning. My dad and sister left before my brother and I. So I woke up to a call from my dad saying, "get down here fast, she's gone into cardiac arrest twice and its not looking good.'' I kid you not, from the time that my brother and I left our beds in our house in Kaysville, to the time we got off the 4th south exit in Salt Lake, 11 minutes had passed. I went 90 miles an hour (the fastest our mini van would go) the entire way. When we got there, we were allowed one by one to go back and see her. I remember walking in there, and I saw her, life support pumping through her lungs so viciously that her body would violently lift up and thrust down. Blood was literally everywhere. On the floor, the walls, coming out her ears and eyes, out her mouth. It was horrifying, and I will never be able to forget that.

When they gathered us together in a room with a social worker, they told us she had a 10% chance of living. I didn't take my sunglasses off the entire time, crying harder than I ever have before. I didn't want people to watch me. I didn't want to have to make this decision. We decided as a family to take her off of life support, knowing full well that she would die. Hands down, the hardest and saddest moment of my life. But seeing her in that room...we knew she needed to be at rest.

The nurses told us to wait for a few minutes while they removed all the cords and tubes, and cleaned her up. Then we were allowed in. I stood next to her, no more tears to cry. There was blood puddling at the foot of her bed, as it was still coming out of her bum (for lack of a better word). Her eyes couldn't close, because her actual eyeballs had filled with blood. We stood around her, holding her hands, stroking her hair. About 30 seconds later, she took her last labored breath. In that moment, none of us cried. The shock and trauma started to set in. The way she died was so horrific and terrifying. It's still a fresh memory, and I don't know that I will ever be able to get those images out of my mind.

We started to leave the hospital, when we decided that we would drive up to where my parents were married. They were married in a cute little place next to LDS hospital and the Capitol. We took a few pictures, dazed and quiet. That's when I don't really remember anything. I remember that night, my brother and I slept on my sisters floor. We slept there for a few weeks. But honestly I don't remember most of the year after my mom dying. The trauma kinda shut down my brain for a long while.

I have started to heal, slowly but surely. It has been the most difficult trial. I have truly never felt a broken heart until the day she passed away. I miss my mom every second. There literally isn't time that goes by that I don't think about her. I hurt when I think about her, but I honestly am so happy she isn't sick anymore. I'm happy that she doesn't have the burden of this mortal life to carry. She's free! I just wish she were here. I long for her. Sometimes I still forget she isn't here, and I get Sade and myself ready for the day and think, "we'll go see my mom today!" and then I remember all over. I am taking it day by day, even though it's been two years. I'm just glad I'm not still taking it second by second, or minute by minute. At least there's progress.

I'm so blessed to know that I am sealed to my mom. What a comfort it is to know that I WILL see her again, that she's waiting for me. I'm so thankful for that. So until then, I'll do the best I can here! Be the best mom I can for my baby and continue onward in my faith:)