A Comforting Death?

Does death bring with it a certain sense of serenity? Should it? I think there’s a certain kind of peace that accompanies the act of letting go. The challenge of reaching that level of peace is first overcoming the feelings of grief and pain that often accompanies losing a loved one.

Mama Visionary died almost five years ago. As cliche as this might sound, it’s hard to believe that she’s been gone for nearly five years. Since she’s been gone, I’ve tended to wonder whether it is exclusively her fault that she died when she did. In the grand scheme of things, I guess it really doesn’t matter because regardless of who is to blame, Mama Visionary is not coming back, at least not in any kind of meaningful, tangible kind of way. So Mama Visionary has been dead for almost five years. She died of sepsis and multiple organ failure. I believe sepsis is an infection in the blood. I also want to believe that, at least in her case, sepsis was something that was entirely preventable.

In a nutshell, Mama Visionary had been bedridden for about four years. Arthritis in her knees made her lose interest in getting up, walking, and otherwise being mobile. She created a new and seemingly comfortable normal, which led to her living life completely in her bed. It was then that she started to live a life that no longer required her to stand up or really do much of anything anymore. Her cell phone and tablet became her primary means by which she would have contact with and access to the outside world. Suffice it to say that atrophy is a bitch and after a while, her muscles became so weak that she couldn’t have stood up even if she wanted to.

With being bedridden for as long as she was, Mama Visionary gradually (obviously) developed these massive bed sores. I guess these bed sores eventually started to hurt, to where either she started to notice it for the first time or the pain just became too excruciating to ignore after so many months. She would spend nearly two months in and out of different wound care facilities.

On October 15, the beginning of the end was just getting underway. Her condition started to deteriorate and she knew it. She had even told Papa Visionary that she was dying. There was no drama or humor behind it either. She had to have felt something, something that made her genuinely believe that she wasn’t going to make it.

Obviously, she didn’t make it and days later, in the early morning hours of October 18, she died while in the Intensive Care Unit. She had been unconscious for over 12 hours before her heart finally stopped.

Cardiac arrest at the time. Sepsis according to the official death certificate. Death either way. And like that, Mama Visionary was gone.

Sadness, relief, confusion, and uncertainty, I felt it all. But I found that I didn’t really cry that much or as much as I thought I would have. Maybe one really good cry and that was it. I think that my mentality was that she was in a better place now, where the pain of this world could no longer wreak havoc on her, whether physically or in any other capacity really.

Mama Visionary was ultimately cremated. Probably the best thing to do and the family didn’t argue about it. There was a consensus.

It’s been five years now. I know she’s gone and never coming back. This was her fate and at some point in time, we will all meet our own fate. I just don’t know if I want my fate to be decided by a bout of sepsis. But regardless of how Mama Visionary was taken from us, her passing and absence just makes our memories of her that much more valuable.

In the end, I am part of her legacy. I am something that she created, at least in the physical body capacity. As far as the mental and personality stuff, I would never blame her for any of that. I don’t know if I could blame anyone for my quirks and idiosyncrasies. I’m just awkward in so many different ways and that’s not Mama Visionary’s doing.

Five years will soon give way to 10, then 15, and will continue until Papa Visionary, myself, and my three siblings will be reunited with her.

I love Mama Visionary, but I’m not ready to join her just yet. I have to think that wherever she might be, she knows this, without my having to say or write it.

Mama Visionary
May 1951 – October 2018