I cannot forget how my mother died and I don't know if she is just dead or in a better place

My mom rarely complained even though she was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer in 2012 at the healthy age of 55. (Note: she never smoked in her life) A few months of chemo later, my mother’s leg began to feel weaken and I remember she lamented the fact that she would be using a cane at this age. She has always been so active, due to the nature of her laborious jobs and hard working ethics.  My mom fell down on the hall way and broke her femur in the middle of May last year and I quickly called 911, and she has been slowly losing her mobility ever since  then and finally, she became bed ridden during the last month of her life. She passed away on Feb 18, 2014.

During the last two days of my mother life. She lost her ability to speak. I gave her a pen and a notebook (which I am going to keep till I died). She wrote in Chinese to her friends “I am so happy you guys come to visit me”, “Unfortunately, I can’t speak”, “I lost my ability to speak overnight, now no one will know what I feel” “I don’t like to not being able to speak” “I can’t breath,” “I am stopping all medication” “my throat feels so dry, I can’t drink." The words look shaky and unlike my mom's usually neat and tidy writings.

I am still having nightmare as I watch as my mom suffer helplessly on the floor with her broken leg, or struggling to breath on the bed in which she would died in. I have never seen my mom suffered and pleaded for help in such a way because she has always been the strongest person I’ve ever known. All I could do is to ask the nurse to give more pain and relaxation medication, or to change mom’s sleeping position. From that day on, February 16, 2014, my heart is completely broken and it has never recovered since, and I don’t know how it can ever be recovered. My heart is bleeding endlessly for my poor mother and I wish so much that I could take her place instead.

My mom despite all her suffering, held onto the very end until her sisters from Hong Kong arrived to see her for one last time. After an hour and a half the sisters arrived, my mother took her last breath. 

My mom is the type of woman who sacrificed herself, and her own needs for her family members and especially her adult children, including my deadbeat brother whom we shared the same roof with.  She never got a break in life. She didn't have the love of a father, her marriage ended in years of sadness and eventually a divorce, she and I spent all our time worrying our finances and we rarely had any fun other than eating in restaurants or having coffee at food court malls. The only blessing is that she know I do love her very much.   If my mother was still alive, she would want me to live on and be happy, as well as to get along with  brother, and my mom’s remaining sisters as well as my grandmother.

She would also wish her own mother a happy mother’s day. My mom is love and her legacy is the love she expressed to her family. She never disappointed us, because her love is unconditional. I do not know how I can be happy and functional for the rest of my life without my mother's larger than life physical presence. One thing I do know is that I cannot let her sacrifices be in vain; perhaps that would be the best mother's day gift I can give to my mother.

Mommie, Happy Mother's Day and I love you forever and my only wish is to see us reunited again one day.