Seven and Eleven

June 11^th.  It happens to be seven months since my mother passed away.  I never was one to believe much in symbols or signs, but over the months since Momma’s passing I have started to see a connection between the numbers 7 and 11 and a connection to my mother. I never gave it much thought while she was living, but she and I shared a symbolic birthday pattern; she was born on 7/11 and I was born on 11/7. She departed this life on 11/11. She died in room 11 on her hospital floor. I can’t shake the significance. Almost daily, I will glance at the clock at 7:11. It brings me peace for a fraction of a second and I quickly whisper “Momma” with a wink and a smile.

On November 7^th, my 46^th birthday, we admitted Momma to in- hospital hospice. I spent the entirety of the day sitting by Momma’s bedside, often climbing right in with her to stroke her hair. I offered her lavender lotion scented leg rubs, tastes of thickened Coca Cola on moistened swabs, and gentle words of comfort as long as I could hold the tears back. I couldn’t help but think that 46 years ago, she was likely cradling me in her arms in a starched hospital gown, exhausted and offering me gentle words of comfort while wondering what lay ahead. I’m certain and grateful she wouldn’t have predicted that her final years spent with her baby would be spent in confusion, paranoia, and forgetfulness.

Momma’s neuropsychologist gave me the best analogy for Parkinson’s dementia in comparison to Alzheimer’s. She said that the mind is like a file cabinet. In PD, the files have been sorted through, misfiled, or jumbled. You can retrieve information but it often comes out incorrectly or things are imagined based on the confusion of information that has been filed. In an Alzheimer’s patient, those files have been removed and tossed away, never to be retrieved. Both circumstances leave an individual distressed, and loved ones in a state of helplessness. I’m grateful that Momma recognized me until the end. I often appeared to her in the end as “Little Leigh,” I’m guessing about 7 or 8 years old. She’d listen to what Little Leigh was saying. I’d like to think this is her way of reconciling any issues she had feeling like I was “putting her away” or conspiring against her. As grown up Leigh, my father and I shared the position of enemy number one when it came to the memory care decision. I believe the image of Little Leigh was comforting, taking her back to a place where she was confident and happy, and where I was dependent upon her, not the other way around.

Before Momma’s move to hospice on my birthday, I had been with her continuously for 4 days and nights, twilight sleeping next to her hospital bed on a springy miniature cot with my sister.  We were literally and figuratively clinging to each other for support, trying to come to our own separate peace with what was happening. I’m not sure I can aptly describe the emotional turmoil that comes along with making the decision to move Momma to hospice. And to make that decision on a day that I was receiving joyful birthday wishes? Heartbreaking. I was away from my family, emotionally bruised, and sleep deprived. Having traveled the winding road of uncertainty for so long, it was impossible to believe that this was taking place.

Sometime in the afternoon of Tuesday November 7^th, I tuned in to the soft lullabies that were being played intermittently over the intercom at the hospital. One of Momma’s care nurses disclosed in passing that the lullabies were signs of babies being born. Babies. BABIES! BABIES!!!! On my own birthday, the day of the “official” beginning of Momma’s dying process, I was flooded with an intense, almost manic joyful feeling of connection to these newly announced babies that I will likely never know. I counted seven babies that day, and did not hear the lullaby again until the day Momma died on the 11^th.

November 7, 2017. The hospital was filled with life. Life struggling, life healing, life renewing, life beginning, life ending. Life that had been loved, and life that WILL be loved. I’ve always been obsessed with the Henry David Thoreau quote “Every Child Begins the World Again.” That night, I just actually understood it.

Today, June 11^th, is my niece Abby’s 11^th birthday. She had a special bond with my mother, two fierce yet fragile souls that cared deeply for one another. They will forever be connected through their shared 11’s. Begin the world again, Abigail Ainsleigh. Look for your signs.