TW/CW: death of a parent, cancer, intubation

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On December 9th, 2022 my mom passed away after a 7 year battle with breast cancer. Our family honored her wishes by hosting two memorial services. Below is my speech that I shared during both services.

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Thank you, everyone, for sharing your beautiful memories of my mom. She truly was one of a kind and she will live on in all of us.

Before we continue, I want to take a moment to collectively breathe together. During difficult times in our lives our mom used a breathing exercise to help us recenter and refocus.

We will take a few inhales and exhales together and as we end each breath I will say the number we are on. Our mom would have us repeat the number back to her before moving on to the next breath, so feel free to repeat after me if you’d like.

If you feel safe to do so, close your eyes, place your hand on your heart, and take a few deep breaths with me and my family.

*inhale* *exhale* 1

*inhale* *exhale* 2

*inhale* *exhale* 3

*inhale* *exhale* 4

On the day we are born we take our first breath.

And on the day that we die we take our last.

All the minutes in between, our breath exists, in the background, keeping our body alive.

From time to time we may consciously think about our breathing. Slowing it down in moments of panic. Speeding it up to create heat on cold winter days. Holding it to swim under water.

It is both a voluntary and involuntary function of the body.

These past 7 years our family has walked along side my mom through the most difficult battle of her life. We have been holding our breath as we navigated the long road that led from diagnosis, to remission, to finding out the cancer returned, and finally death.

Ooof, the dreaded D word.

Throughout my entire life death has scared me.

Often times I’d look up at the night sky, see the clouds moving, and begin to panic. Clouds at night signified to me our angels in heaven. How can someone here today be gone in one breath, never to be seen, heard, or felt again.

In those moments my mom would hug me and remind me to breathe

Death is an inevitable thing, happening every day in life. Until you are walking that road with someone you love, it’s hard to conceive what death truly encompasses

My brother put it perfectly, it’s a beautiful symphony.

The last 2 weeks of my mom’s life were truly a beautiful symphony

A song woven in the hearts of her 4 heart humans

Out of all that happened those 2 weeks, the most powerful take away, the most cherished moments, will always surround her breath.

Waking up Sunday morning to our dad telling us she was being put on a respirator changed the trajectory of our lives. The world stopped moving, we held our breath, and individually gathered ourselves and made our way to the hospital.

What stood before us after crossing that threshold was nothing any of us were prepared for.

It wasn’t a respirator, our mom was intubated.

One of her wishes at time of death was not to be on a ventilator and we had already failed her, but I’ll be damned if we weren’t going to get to the bottom of this.

Through discussions with the doctors and nurses we found out that our mom’s CO2 levels spiked to 157, normal range being 35-45, so if we were to pull the ventilator she would breathe for minutes and that would be it.

We knew her wishes. She wanted to be at home, in her bed, surrounded by her 4 heart humans.

But her lungs weren’t strong enough to exhale the carbon dioxide.

We went to work. We talked to doctors. We learned from nurses. We made a game plan with hospice.

Despite all of the medical personnel telling us how traumatic, or near impossible, it would be to take her home and off the ventilator, we fought tooth and nail.

We told them to get on board because if anyone was going to fight, it would be our mom.

As days ticked by we gave her every chance possible to breathe.

Both of her lungs had a liter of fluid drained from them to give them room to push the toxins out of her body.

We surrounded her and practiced breathing with her.

Chris would place his hand on her abdomen and tell her to engage her muscles as she pushed her breaths out.

We would watch the monitor and cheer her on when she breathed over the machine.

Every second was filled with us teaching our mom to breathe the same way she taught us to breathe

Strong, deep, and purposeful.

As the time came for us to take her home we had been told by everyone that we shouldn’t extubate her.

It’ll be traumatic for her, and for you.

She’ll have minutes to breathe

We huddled around her, in her bed, in her home, holding her hands.

Her 4 heart humans, whispering words of encouragement to take deep breaths.

Minutes passed.

Then hours.

Her hands always being held, her abdomen always being rubbed, and her chest bone always being tapped

The reminder to breathe never ceasing.

19 hours later, as a home video played her smiling face, she took her last breath.

Her story didn’t end the way we imagined it would, but we could not have written anything as beautiful as the symphony of her last breaths.  

As you leave here today there is one thing I want to ask you, “what do the rest of your breaths look like in life?”

Will they be filled with absent mindedness?

Caution?

Adventure?

Purpose?

Your body will naturally breathe on its own, but it’s up to you to fill the pathways, the roadmaps of your lungs, with something meaningful.

Pause

Take that deep breath

*inhale* *exhale* 1

And begin the journey to making your final breaths count, however many God grants you in life.