Guest Writer: Nikki DeNecochea, Su Ultima

memory

Editor's Note

Michael Sedano

“We have nothing but time.”

Betty summarized our Memory Club gathering. Our fellow caregivers, living with different progressions of dementias, talk about our medications and disappointments, deteriorating status quos, our undying love for a disappearing partner. Our outlook grows dim. Our souls are hopeless. 

The four of us fight despair and look forward to talking to people going through their own versions of the same process: a brain breaking down kills a loved one’s cognitive abilities. Finally, dementia takes a spouse’s life from us. Everything we caregivers speak about has the same inevitability.

“We have nothing but time,” Betty spoke. She was hopeful for it, the time.

A year and a half passed since that conversation. Today all we have is memories. Time ran out for both of us. 

Death and dying are elements of dementia and caregiving no one talks about. It's yet another hard fact about the enormity of living with Alzheimer's or another cognitive disease. Unspoken words tend to bear great weight and value.

Guest writer Nikki DeNecochea shares the most intimate moment in a caregiver's experience, that moment of transition. 

La Bloga thanks our returning guest for sharing these moments. Dementia is a growing disease in the United States. Being aware is a way of preparing for life with Alzheimer's. Diagnosed with your partner's dementia, all you can do is prepare and endure and enjoy; all you have is Time.

SU ULTIMA

Nikki DeNecochea

It had been a day of dread and one for feeling the weight of my heavy heart.  I believe anxiety to be my comfort from total panic, and my self-protection.   My mother is ready, I am not.

 “Pay attention” is the urging of that voice that accompanies me each of these last days.  It seems I’m being asked to pay particular attention, throughout this June day.   Don’t panic, breathe, and comfort her is repeated to me.  

“Be aware” -- my ancestors taunt. 

  

All the signs are here I was being readied to be her ultimate solace, on her last night.    It would be the day that no one is fully prepared to accept -- losing a mother.   And, not one of those routine ‘get ready for bed, lock up, lights out’ kind of nights.  It was to be my mother’s last night.  Su ultima.  

On this eve she’s beginning her hard exit, and the struggle was getting noisy.  Death is noisy to the last inhale, and then the heavy silence is equally intense. 

 

This day would be different from all others.  Something extra-sensory was going on. Guides seemed to whisper, “Ayudala mija” as I felt directed to help ready her to let go of the rope suspending a freefall.  Together, moving into the last night toward her last dawn, clinging tightly to the reality of it all. 

 

I admit that there was a self-protective nudge to numb-out and reside in comfortable denial.   “Not today.  I can’t today. Maybe tomorrow, if I’m wrong and she doesn’t transition,” I think to myself.  

Today is the day.  

Our final unspoken obligation was identified and accepted without either of us ever exchanging a word, sealed by our souls, long before this last night.  She was obligated to leave, and my obligation was to let her go.  

My providence – to be the last person she heard and felt, as we held hands, and I stroked her brow while speaking softly of things that had nothing to do with death and everything to do with our lives together.   My final ofrenda to her, and my purpose was to be the conduit for her soul’s release and to help her receive all the hope and love of all who came before, waiting, waiting, waiting for her to join them.   

I imagined them giving us their ofrendas of peace and calm. She would speak of them to me, in those last weeks, and point in the direction of their spirits in the room, saying, “Ya quieren que me vaya.” So real to her, she would squint to see them, and lower her head with a laser focus to see better.   These visions were patient and forestalling.  

 It was the last time I spoke to her of her life and parents recalling her shared stories. I spoke of her children and grandchildren, and of her closest lifetime friends to fill the room with their presence, so we didn’t feel so alone.    My intent was to calm her spirit with meaningful memories, as she made headway toward releasing her soul.   My ultima ofrenda and thanks for the life she gave was to be her light on this eve.     

With it came blind faith and a calmness of purpose.    

The room glowed with candlelight and music from her era, and some from mine.  I sang the lyrics so that she could hear that I was next to her.   Or was I calming myself and my fear of this night’s inevitable loss?   

Generous to the end, she shared her deathbed with me, as we lay on her pillow that smelled of her and captured the warmth of her head.  We shared our body heat under her favorite blanket, as she began the final glide.  Hand in hand, ear to ear, and heart to heart as all those bouncing atoms in the room began transforming her soul into stardust. 

At dawn, she was gone.   

Outside, a new day, with an unexpected envoy.  A hummingbird, with full courageous intent, made its way from the yard of color and flowers, zooming under the patio cover and in a suspended flutter she buzzed and hovered inches from my face, as I sat making cell calls to announce my mother’s exit.   

Gracias, Mamita.   The hummingbird brought a resounding message and symbolic gesture on her part and a thoughtful, and reassuring ultima despedida – her last farewell.   In gratitude, I rose to return to her cooling body and summoned all her guardians to raise her and strengthen me for what is to come.   And as if by ancestral imprinting, I opened the house and windows, smudged her body and the room with white sage and invited her spirit to su ultima.

Beatriz De Necochea