She tried to warn me.

Long before the doctors told us the inevitable, long before my heart knew what was coming, she tried to tell me.

She told one of her friends before she could tell us. One of her best friends was giving us a break to get some rest when Mom looked at her and said, “No rehab.” She knew we were researching rehab facilities. Her friend told her, “You need to tell them. It can’t come from me.”

When I tried to encourage her with sight cards, songs, and games, she would humor me for a little while and then give up. I was so frustrated internally because I wanted her to get better and I knew she knew the answers. I knew it was hard, but I believed if she could just say this word, or recognize this pattern, she’d be okay. She would just look at me with eyes that said, “No more.” I thought she was giving up, but she just saw what was coming. Still, the nights we sang simple songs will be memories I hold forever—because we did it together, and we laughed, joked, and she smiled. In those moments, she was just Mom…not a stroke patient.

I tried to keep the administrative and family stress out of her room. As is natural, there was family anxiety, though we tried to keep it in check. Everyone was struggling and emotions were high. Balancing what she expressed she wanted with what the rest of us wanted was hard. Thankfully, she was able to answer direct questions fairly easily, and she had planned out her wishes in a living will and medical power of attorney well before this happened. She had seen too much in her life and wanted to ensure everything was in order when her time came. She was a woman who had everything planned, and all she wanted was for her family to be good to each other and taken care of if she left us.

Although the fear was always in the back of my mind during many sleepless nights, one day she looked at me and said, “I’m going to go see my brother.” I was sitting on the couch in the room, looked up, and asked, “Momma, what did you just say?” She said, matter-of-factly, “I’m going to go see my brother.”

Her brother had died almost 60 years prior, when she was 16. My heart skipped, my breath caught, and not wanting to burst into tears or look scared in front of her, I tried to joke: “You don’t see him now, do you?” She looked at me like I was crazy and shook her head no. I laughed and said, “Okay then, as long as he isn’t here.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes like she usually did when I said something silly. But it hit me hard in the core, and I soon had to excuse myself from the room so I wouldn’t cry in front of her. The next time she spoke, there was no holding back.

One night toward the end of her stay on earth, I was reading on the hospital couch, letting her relax, when she suddenly looked over and said, “Do you want to plan my service?” I immediately looked up, thinking I had misheard her. Her aphasia was severe, so I wanted to make sure I heard right—especially knowing how hard she had to work to choose the right words. I asked, “Mom, what did you just say?” She repeated herself. I immediately teared up and asked her not to ask that—that I wasn’t ready, and besides, she had already planned her services (which she literally had in her will documents, right down to what to talk about!). She teared up and said, “I’m sorry.” We both cried, tried to laugh, and just enjoyed being together. Of course, I told her never to be sorry, because she was the best mother I could have ever asked for.

The last direct phrase she said to me—other than “I love you” when I left the night before she lost consciousness—was, “I want you, I need you, I trust you.” I looked at her, as I often did to make sure my mind wasn’t making up her words, and she repeated herself. Then she nodded like it was a matter of fact, and that was that. I knew what she was telling me. She was summing up our life together and making sure I knew that after she left, all would be well—because she trusted me.

Not many days after, her home became the ICU, bringing moments I’m not quite ready to share. I will say that I was appalled by the actions of some people I knew, yet profoundly grateful for the kindness of strangers. It was a confusing time. In the year that followed, I was the one blamed for trying to balance her wishes with what the law allowed. And that’s okay. She knew I could handle it. If God exists—or whatever higher presence helps us through this life—they know I balanced things as best I could to keep my family together.I can’t say that everyone agreed, or that all our relationships survived, but I followed what she wanted. I can’t change what happened. I can only hope that, in time, eyes are opened to what we all endured and hearts begin to heal.

The dynamic has changed. Do I wish it hadn’t? No one would. But I’m not the only variable in a relationship. I know that I tried. The grief will always be there—but so will the hope.