BEGINNING AND END

By Mark Reed

September 13, 1946. A beginning. I was born. I was not alone. My mother was there. Virginia “Jennie” Lee Pepper Reed. Mommy. Mom. Mother. She was twenty-two years old, having been born in 1924. It was a Friday the thirteenth the day I was born, but mom always told me it was my lucky day. It was her’s too, she said. We always commented on that fact whenever a Friday the thirteenth came around. She held my head to her chest on the day I was born. I’m sure I could hear her heart beat, just as I could inside her womb. I was her first born. She was my first mom. She was the kindest, most loving person I ever knew. I never had even the slightest doubt that she loved me with all her heart. She had a big heart. Not just for me. She loved her family and friends and showed it unequivocally. Everyone who knew her loved her. I never heard her say a harsh word about anyone. I never heard her curse. She was a truly good person through and through.

Why is it that God inflicts the really good? But if you think about it, even the really bad are inflicted in this fallen world. Sort of equal opportunity infliction, if you will. In my mom’s case, it was brain cancer. She was operated on December 2, 1958. She was not expected to live, and if she did, she would likely never live a normal life. Mom was what was called a modern miracle of medical science. She not only survived, but lived, for the most part, a normal life. As a result of the brain cancer she lost vision in one eye, lost her sense of smell (actually, this could be taken as a blessing at times), and her once vibrant and outgoing personality was more subdued. The surgeon said he thought he got all the tumor and that it should not come back. It didn’t. One thing that did not change was the love in her heart. I was a recipient of that over abundant love.

Her life revolved around her family and friends. I thought I was the center of her universe, but I suppose that many who were blessed with her love felt something similar when they were with her. Even with the loss of an eye, she could still drive, and drive she did. She was a proverbial fixture in Smyrna, Georgia in her car driving all over visiting family and friends. My sister, brother and I were with her most of the time as she made her little road trips within the City Limits of Smyrna. She rarely ventured outside her comfortable boundary inflicted on her by her brain cancer. But her life was full.

Fast forward thirty years to 1987. She was sixty-three years old. She had two grandsons to shower her love on. I used to joke about being her favorite, but there was no doubt that Bill and Lew were her favorites now. I was OK with that. I think it was the happiest she had been since her own children were born.

But infliction reared its ugly head once again in her life. She was diagnosed with brain cancer once again. This time it was a totally different type. What were the odds? And it was a particularly nasty variety. Her surgeon, the same one from thirty years before, said that this one had no chance of being removed totally, as the tumor had tendrils spread throughout her brain. He said he could get the majority, but that would only give her a year’s more life at best. A death sentence. For my mommy. Yeah, it hurt. She was operated on July 6, 1987. After the operation and a three week stay in the hospital, she was discharged and we brought her home on July 25th. She was pretty much her old self, except no more driving. She depended on us for that when she needed to go somewhere. We went through a honeymoon phase of a couple of months where she was pretty much her old self, at least personality wise. But it was downhill from there.

She required round the clock care. We tried to have live in help, but that did not work. We even tried her staying with us, but that only lasted a short time. She required more care than we were able to provide. It was a hard decision, but we decided that a nursing home was the only option. Once she became bed ridden, we moved her to a very nice facility near Northside Hospital. We hired our own nurse to stay with her. I tried to visit every day. She finally went into a coma from which, the doctors told us, she would not recover. Thankfully, we had discussed with her before her operation what steps were to be taken in such a case. I had been given her full power of attorney and she had executed a living will declining any life saving measures if there were no hope of recovery. That included feeding tubes and IV’s. While the doctors wanted to take these steps, I stood firm and respected her wishes. It was just a matter of time then. Days, really.

On the morning of July 5, 1988, I took Michelle to Northside Hospital for an emergency appendectomy. The surgeon came to me in the waiting room and told me that Michelle had come through with flying colors and would be moved to her private room for a couple of days recovery, and that I could go up to her room to await her arrival. When I got to her room, I called my office and there was a message from mom’s nurse that I needed to get there as soon as possible, as she was fading fast. I was in a quandary. I’m waiting for Michelle to be brought up from her surgery and yet I needed to leave immediately. Thankfully, they wheeled Michelle in at that moment. She was still a little groggy, but I explained to her what was going on and she said for me to not hesitate, to go to my mom, that she would be OK. I kissed her and left.

I had a decision to make. Mom’s nursing facility was about a half-mile from the hospital. I had to choose going to the parking lot, finding the car, getting out of the lot and drive there, or run. I had always been a runner. I can only imagine what people must have thought as they witnessed this man in a coat and tie sprinting down the road. I got there, ran in the entrance, up the stairs, and into the hallway where mom’s room was located. As I was running down the hall, our nurse came out of her room, saw me, and shook and bowed her head. I rushed into the room and saw mom on the bed, exactly as I had seen her in her coma the day before.

I went to her bedside and pressed my ear to her chest. And I heard, “thump-thump…thump…” and nothing more. She died one day short of one year from her operation. But I had made it in time. She did not die alone. She was there at my beginning, and I was there at her end. With my head to her chest. Full circle to where it began for she and I.