The news of my mom’s death rocked our world. I was sitting in my therapist’s office when I found out. This came after weeks of her sending these messages saying she was going to be with Jesus. Many of her letters she had sent in the past couple of years had said such things as “was Nana” or “was Mom.” I had never wanted to “cut her off” completely. We had wanted space and time to heal from the chaos that was felt during her time with us in Ohio. We couldn’t make sense of the jumbled mess of stories she kept feeding us. We were hurting from the whiplash of the back and forth.
We literally could no longer financially afford for her to live with us. One day she wrote a check to pay for rent and two days later she asked for that money back. I didn’t even have it in my account to give her because we had paid bills. My mom had discovered online dating sites. We had talked her out of many scammers, but one had stuck around. The story she told us about him didn’t make sense.
Then one day her car was gone. Just disappeared. She told us she had to get an oil change. Shortly after this, she told us some guy at the local Dollar General had gotten forceful with her about the money she owed him. Suddenly, this was no longer just an online scammer issue, but a local one. When we tried to ask her to clarify she told us a completely different story and acted like we made up the first story she told us. After finding her roaming around downtown one hot day, we brought her home and asked her if she would let us be her power of attorney so we could help her figure out the financial/scammer situation. She ignored us.
I called her social worker and asked for advice. She said we could call Adult Protective Services. So we did. We never found out if anything happened with that, other than I know that they came to talk to her. Then, we asked her to leave. We asked her to have an idea of what she was doing by August (this was June).
People started asking why were kicking Mom out in August. We hadn’t even set an official move out date! When I tried to clarify that with her she literally told me a specific date in August. So, if you can’t beat crazy, join it. I told her she was correct. I reminded her of her social worker. I helped get her a list of possible housing options. I sent links for places for her to go. I asked her if she needed help packing. NOTHING. She did nothing, at least from my perspective. She said her online boyfriend was coming to pick her up and she was going to stay with him. (WHAT!?)
Two weeks from the move out date she created, I looked her straight in the eye and told her, “Mom, if you do not pack up and move out your stuff when you leave, whatever is left will go to the trash. I am not keeping it. We have another tenant moving in.” That was the first time in months that her eyes changed. I could see “her” and the realization that if she didn’t have it figured out all of her stuff was gone. She actually asked me to help her get some boxes and move it to her storage unit.
When Mom left to move in with a sweet friend in Alabama, she loaded up as much of her stuff as she could in her friend’s vehicle. We said, “Goodbyes.” I was so grateful that Mom would have a place to stay that was safe and hoped she would see some sense. She may have been heart broken because the online boyfriend never came. I didn’t know what the future would hold for her, but I knew God had provided for her. I also knew that I still had a house full of stuff to deal with. I didn’t expect it to be the last time I saw my mom. I was drowning in everything she had left behind and reeling from the back and forth of the things she told us. I didn’t know if any of it was the truth.
“She f***ing did it.” The first words out of my mouth when I found out she had killed herself. She finally told the truth. She told the truth. She was with Jesus. How can one describe the immense grief of the moment and the overwhelming relief at the same time? There was no more, “maybe she meant this..”, “maybe it means that”, “what is she going to do”, “how can we help”, “what can we do”, “what should we do?”
I no longer had to worry where she would be, who she was with, if she was safe. I was terrified she was going to be homeless. My mom loved us in her own way. Looking back, we could have screamed how much we loved her and wanted the best for her. I suspect though that it wouldn’t have been enough.
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