The Day She Died

Six months ago today my mom died very suddenly and very unexpectedly.

Let me back up a little, though, to about 6:45 pm on Friday, November 21, 2014. Mom and I were on our third or fourth phone conversation that day and had started moving into our usual phone call “wrap up” dialogue where she would say “I love you, honey” and I would say “me, too.” This time, though, I started with “I love you mom and I’ll see you tomorrow.” She said “goodbye honey.”

I didn’t think much of it at the time.

It had been a surreal (understatement) and stressful (more understatement)  36-ish hours. Mom had suffered a massive heart attack on Thursday, but survived. And while she wasn’t “out of the woods,” she was recovering and improving with the expectation of a Saturday or Sunday hospital discharge.

November 22, 2014, 5:15 a.m.

I had been awake since around 4:30 am. My flight was out of National at 6:55 am and my friend Josh was picking me up at 5:30. (He graciously offered the ride. I’m still amazed that anyone would get up that early for me.)  I had been tooling around my apartment trying to distract myself by doing last second spot cleaning. I had just tossed something in the trash and dismissively let the cabinet door quietly slam shut when this incredible, sharp, shooting pain shot through my gut, doubling me over. I grasped the edge of the kitchen counter, exhaled loudly and the pain was gone. I thought the Chipotle from the night before wasn’t settling right.

I didn’t think much else of it at the time.

5:27 a.m.

“Your chariot awaits,” Josh texts.

I grab my backpack, suitcase and a garbage bag and trot downstairs. I throw the garbage and the baggage in the back, climb in the car and see an iced coffee from Starbucks waiting for me in the passenger seat cup holder.

“He went to Starbucks?” I thought. “That’s amazing and so nice!”

After a quick stop at the dumpster to drop off the trash we headed the two-ish miles to the airport sipping our coffee and occasionally interrupting the silence with small talk.

5:40 a.m.

As we rounded the curve of S. Glebe Rd. just before S. Eads street my pocket starts vibrating. I pull my phone out of my pocket and see that it’s my sister, Alyssa, calling. My heart sinks, my anxiety skyrockets and I start shaking. “This can’t be good,” I think to myself. I actually may have even said it out loud.

“Hey,” I say into the phone.

“The hospital called. They’re asking the family to come quickly,” she said.

I don’t remember the rest of the conversation, but I’m pretty sure it ended just as we turned left on to Route 1. And I don’t remember what I said to Josh, but I’ll never forget his response.

“We’re moving forward, Brett. We’re moving forward. This is all we can do,” he said.

As I processed his words in the first few seconds after he said them, I thought to myself, “how stupid.” But then I thought, “Cut him a little slack. It’s 5:30 in the morning, he’s taking you to the airport, he got you coffee and I’m sure I wouldn’t know what to say if I was in his shoes.”

“And actually,” I continued to myself, “the only thing you can do is move forward and he’s helping you do it! You don’t know what’s happening in Albuquerque and you’re doing the only thing you can do: go home.”

Reality shifted at this point. Everything looked slightly out of focus, everything not immediately in front of me faded out of my field of vision and time vacillated between light speed and slow crawl. It’s like my brain put my body on auto-pilot to propel me into the terminal, move me through security, get me to the gate and sit me in my seat on the airplane so that it could try to process the range of emotion besieging it.

Security

I don’t remember the rest of the car ride or what Josh said to me as I pulled my luggage out of the back of his car. I remember walking into the airport terminal with the inner voice in my head drowning everything out with, “oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God…”

I’m next in line to go through security when the non-stop “oh God, oh God, oh God” interrupts itself to say “wait…where’s your coffee?”

I look down at my hands to make sure I’m not holding it. I’m not. My head then swivels around focusing on tables and trash cans and anyplace I could have left it.

I’d left it in the cup holder in the car.

As I’m walking through the metal detector my inner voice starts in on me, “I can’t believe you left your coffee in the car. That is so rude! Josh woke up extra early, went out of his way to get that for you and you show your consideration by leaving it behind.”

As I put my shoes back on, I decide I’ll text Josh and apologize once I get to the gate and get seated in the waiting area, my inner voice returning to “oh God, oh God, oh God…”

6:01 a.m.

Terminal A at National is the old, original building with an offshoot called The Banjo designed by Eero Saarinen (the same guy who designed Dulles airport and the St. Louis Arch). It’s called The Banjo because it has a long, central hallway that leads to an enormous, round room that houses eight gates. From the sky it looks like a banjo. My gate was in The Banjo.

My phone rings again as I start my counter-clockwise walk around The Banjo to find my gate.

It’s Alyssa.

My heart sinks. My hands are shaking even more now. And my weird tunnel vision focuses completely on her name.

I don’t remember her exact words. The first thing I remember is seeing the world through the blur of tear-filled eyes and hearing the world through my now-shallow breathing.

I’m standing in the middle of National Airport waiting to board a flight home so I can help take my mom home from the hospital and help her adjust to life after a massive heart attack.

Except now I’m not.

I’m standing in the middle of National Airport waiting to board a flight home to plan her funeral.

She died.

At 5:15 a.m. Eastern time.

And I’d felt it; I’d actually doubled over in pain.

Thirty Seconds Later

The world around me disappears as the enormity of the news crushes me with the weight and fury of a human’s foot on an ant.

I don’t know what to do, so I begin to look around the gate area hoping to see someone I know.

I’m alone.

There’s nobody with me to function on my behalf, to get me through the boarding line, to settle me into my seat, to get me a drink, to tell every single person in that gate area that my mom just died and that is why I am wailing uncontrollably.

My hand, whitened from the death grip I had on my phone, comes into view.

I am confused. How long had I been standing in that spot? The spot where I found out my mom died. I was convinced it had been 10 minutes. Trying to process the tsunami of emotions I was feeling certainly had to have taken that long.

But it had been less than a minute.

I sink into the closest chair and lock eyes with a woman who had clearly seen the whole episode go down: distracted, unfocused man walks into the gate area; man pulls phone from pocket; man’s facial expression and body language change as he recognizes the caller’s name; man sags as he hears terrible news on the other end; man starts quietly crying.

This complete stranger shared the entire horrible experience with me, comprehending the magnitude of the event, but never actually knowing what happened.

6:02 a.m.

“She died,” I tapped out.

Send.

Now Josh knew.

“I need to remain calm,” I tell myself. “You can’t lose control and get thrown off your flight. Being stuck here is much worse than restraining your emotions to get home.”

I watch my thumb miss Meg’s phone number four times on my phone as I attempt to call her.

It rolls over to voice mail and a text message notification pops up from Meg.

“Can I call you later?” it says.

“Not this time!” I think to myself. I call again.

“I’m so sorry,” she answers, “I hit the wrong button on the phone.”

I don’t remember my exact words, but now Meg knows.

Two friends are helping me shoulder the burden from a distance and I am so grateful for it.

6:25 a.m.

Time has passed.

I have lost my composure and regained my composure dozens of times in those 23 minutes. I sent follow-up texts to Josh and Meg asking them not to post anything on Facebook just yet.

“What a sign of the times,” I think to myself.

I’m standing in line to board the plane.

More time passes.

I’m in my seat and the plane is taking off.

“We’re moving forward Brett. That’s all we can do,” says Josh’s voice in my head. “We’re moving forward.”

Six Months Later

It has taken me six months and dozens of drafts to write this. Josh’s “stupid” phrase (“we’re moving forward Brett”) became my mantra. Since then, some days it was a leap, some days it was a step and some days it was a millimeter. But it was always forward. The entire experience is still so real and so visceral, though, it feels like it happened a minute ago. And it still hurts.

Alyssa told me she debated calling me before I got on my flight. While experiencing what I did in such a public place was brutal, she absolutely did the right thing for me. I appreciate that she considered waiting, but I am grateful that she didn’t.

The story doesn’t end here, and I’m still unsure I’ll write much, if any, more about it. It was the most devastating and difficult two weeks of my life.

Without the love and support of Alyssa, her family, my aunts, uncles, cousins and their families, Bob, my step-brothers and -sister and their families, my mom’s friends and their families and a small klatch of my friends and their families, I’m not sure I would have survived it. It was a beautiful reminder of how special family can be and how special friendship can be. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to find the right words to adequately thank my family and these friends and their families, but this is a start.