Supporting My Mom at the End of Her Life Journey

Documenting my feeling with Mom as I walk with her last part of journey in her life I love my mom! My Mom has worked hard all her life and guess that’s where I have learned from her, Her work ethics. I remember her working really hard in HK trying to provide and raise my siblings, all seven of us together. It was not easy. Through no fault of her own, Mom was not well educated. But she was an intelligent and hardworking woman. Raising seven kids in the 1960's was not easy. My dad was running a small family bakery business and my mom was helping him a lot every day cooking meals for the workers as well as looking after the six of us. ( Dave, my younger brother was not yet born at the time.) Though Mom only received limited schooling, she always valued education and worked extremly hard to encourage all seven of us to further our education. She supported us 100% whenever one of us wanted to go to college. It was no easy task raising seven children and supporting them through college and university.

I was the first one in my family to attend unviersity. My mom never pressured me or told me what to study. She allowed me to be me and supported me 100% in the field I chose to study. While there were hardly any teaching jobs avaiable in the 1970's, Mom never discouragaed or dissuaded me from my passion of becoming a teacher. For this, I am grateful eternally.

I love my mom! Seeing her struggling with cancer has been hard for me. She has gone in a quality long term care home in Stouffville. However, she has been diagnosed with cancer which has progressed to the last stage. For the past couple of weeks, Mom’s arms and legs have swollen a lot, particularly her left arm. Her left hand has ballooned.Instead of her being up and eating in the dining room three times a day, this has to be reduced to only once a day at lunch as moving her in and out of bed has been increasingly difficult even with the aid of a lift by the personal support workers - PSW.

Mom is bruised so easily now. The three of us living in Toronto take turns to visit and feed my mom. The other day I stayed from 12pm to 7 p.m.

 I didn’t leave mom until she had finished dinner in the dining room and relaxed a little in the TV room. After the PSW changed her into her PJ and I tucked her in bed. I said good bye to her ensuring her that I would be back to see her in a few days.

She was holding my hand, didn’t want to let me go. This scene broke my heart. She needs us, her children, to be around her so badly at this time, the last stage of her life. 

 R.T. Toronto