This time of year will always suck for me :(

My heart is killing me. I miss my Mom. I’m sure there are some people in my life who think I didn’t care about my Mom, but truth is…I cared about her more than anything. I always wanted her to get well, and be sober so we could enjoy life together. I wanted to spend holidays with her, and for her to spend tons of time with her grandchildren. I wanted to laugh and share stories, etc. I wanted nothing more my whole life, than for my Mom to be my Mom. It kills me that we never had the chance to make things right. The last conversation I had with her was that I wanted her to get help for herself, and how concerned I was for her and her health. She refused to go, even if it meant not having me in her life. Hanging up with her that day broke me into pieces. I felt my whole life she didn’t love me, or my siblings enough to get sober, but I have only recently realized that it wasn’t because she didn’t love and care about us. She was too ill to stop it. She was too depressed to stop it. She had no hope for herself and she didn’t want to live the life she was given. As much as she always had the tools to change that life, she wouldn’t do it. I told her so many times in my life that I would help her and support her through the process, but she didn’t want to. Alcohol was her best friend. It was #1, sadly. I wish she didn’t hurt so bad. I know it started with the death of her closest brother. She loved him so much and spent so much time with him, and when he took his own life she felt that guilt of maybe wishing she could have done more. A week prior to that, she lost her father, my grandfather to colon cancer. He was very young. Not long after she lost her favorite nephew to a car accident. I know this carried with her every day. She couldn’t live with the good memories of them. She just wanted them here again. She was not happy in her marriage. I know this for certain. So many people took advantage of my mother. They always needed something from her, and she didn’t say no. She was very giving in that respect.  She was very lonely. Her husband was always at work, or at the bar. I remember having to call down to the PC or Stretchers for my Mother to see if he was there. He would work 16+ hours, and instead of coming home to his family, he went to the bar. Everyone thought it was just my mom with the drinking problem. It was him, too. I just feel so much sadness for my mom, and I wish she had a better life. Depression led to more depression, disappointment and nothing could bring her back. I thought being her oldest, I could be the one to help her and change that, so when I spoke to her that day asking her to get help, I couldn’t leave it at that. I just couldn’t walk from the woman who gave me life and not try to bring HER back to life. When she hung up with me, I called my sister Stacey. I was crying and told her that I couldn’t see her getting more ill from this devil I call alcohol. She was killing herself. I couldn’t watch it anymore. My mother was still so young and had many good years left, and it wasn’t too late to make something great happen. My sister and I talked over the next few days, and we decided together that we would rather help her and have her be mad at us for doing something against her will, rather her die from this drug abuse. We decided then to go to court and file an order to have her put in rehab. that she was not safe. On April 14th, 2010 we arrived at her house with 2 officers (which still kills me that this is the way the help people in these conditions). She was hiding in the bathroom with the water running. I knocked. I said, “Mom”. She answered a quick, “what” like she was mad, and an officer told her to open the door. She opened the door. Her skin was green and her eyeballs were yellow. Her mouth was bleeding, and I’m still not sure why. Maybe she was brushing her teeth and her gums were sensitive because of the alcohol, or maybe she was very dehydrated. I don’t know. We explained that we cared about her and wanted her to get help. She was really angry. At first, I thought she was drunk, but really the alcohol had taken over her so badly that she was just really sick and frail. She couldn’t walk without holding on to things in her path. I will never forget that day. For this past year now I questioned whether it was the right thing, and I felt so much guilt invading her life this way, but I would have felt worse if she was found in an uncompromising position home alone, and nobody to help her. Her piece of shit husband didn’t care, and we learned later he had a little girlfriend on the side. Nothing unusual. It’s happened a few times with him. We didn’t expect him to ever do the right thing by her, which is why I wish she would have left him years ago. I blame him for so much, even pouring booze down my moms throat.
On the evening of April 14th, we got a call that my mom was taken from rehab to the hospital. The worst hospital ever in my opinion. St. Lukes in New Bedford, which was the closest hospital. I was told that she was sent to Critical Care Unit. For 1 whole month, it was a roller coaster. The doctor went from telling us she was dehydrated, to showing us a picture of her damaged liver, and telling us she would most likely pull through this but could never drink again. He even discussed a liver transplant, but I always thought they didn’t give livers to people like my Mom. Either way he raised our hopes to believe she was going to be ok. Then out of nowhere she was placed on life support, her body filled with fluid and she was in a coma. There are so many things that happened, and that I felt they were doing wrong. When I asked about moving her or  a second opinion, my father lied and said he would take care of it and never did. If you were losing a loved one, wouldn’t you do everything possible to make sure they are getting the care they really need, and what was really going on, really the way it was supposed to be? A lot of things didn’t make sense to me. By the 3rd week, my mom started coming around  a little, but not really in reality. I learned later that when someone is dying, they go through these series of steps. Hallucinating was one of them. I sat next to her a lot and held her hand. There was so much I wanted to say, but I wanted her to be with it to really talk to me. I knew it wasn’t going to happen, so I spent a lot of time talking to her in my own head, and just wishing all of this was a bad dream. Another doctor was brought in too late. He explained that my mother now had a perforated viscus, and it was too late to operate. There was nothing more they could do. They brought in hospice who sat with us a few short hours. On May 12th, 2010 My sister and I both stood next to my mothers bedside. My wife was next to my side, my sisters girlfriend next to her when my mom took her last breath. I still felt like it wasn’t real, and I kept saying no..mom…no. I felt so sick. I never thought in a million years that putting my mother in rehab would result in her death. I never once thought that she was going to die this way. I still have not completely dealt with her death. I think about her every day and cry. She was only 54.