FamiLee Life

In Remembrance of My Mother

My mother died three years ago today – in the early morning hours of December 3rd. She was just shy of her 62nd birthday and was seemingly as healthy as can be only 10 days earlier.

When I first heard the news of my mother’s illness, I was on the plane the next day, heading home to Connecticut. It was a few days before Thanksgiving.

As it turned out, my mom had cancer in her bile duct, liver, stomach, and abdomen. When we first heard the diagnosis, we could not believe it because my mom showed no signs or symptoms of being seriously ill. But it seems that, among all cancers, this type grows fast and aggressive with few serious signs and symptoms until the cancer has advanced to a point of no return. In medical parlance, her cancer was in Stage IV which means that it had spread to other organs and her time left on this earth was short. It also happens to be the case that this type of cancer has the highest prevalence rate among Koreans.

For the last week or so of her life, we spent each waking hour at the hospital…sometimes everyone there together and other times in rotating shifts. She had so many friends and family visit her at the hospital that the room was overflowing with flowers and we gave flowers to other patients and to the nurses.

My mother never lost her spirit and continued to care and love each of us even in her weakest, most painful moments. Her faith in God and her love for family eased much of her pain and she was able to pass away peacefully knowing full well that she had led a good life and was richly blessed.

My mother was a beautiful woman who lived life to the fullest. Like most immigrants who have lived through a war, she had experienced her fair share of heartache and hardship. No one said life was going to be easy for her and she never expected an easy life. Still, my mother took risks. She grabbed the bull by the horns and willed her way into the American Dream. Along the way, she made sure that she brought along the rest of our family, including her sisters, nieces/nephews, and grandmothers, and as many friends and strangers as she could. She was a tour de force. Thank God for mom!

In the last hours of her life, my mother was unconscious and was breathing hard. She had what is known as the death rattle. It was hard for us to bear, but she seemed at peace. Then, in the early hours around 2 AM, she took one last breath, opened her eyes, whispered clearly “I Love You� to my father, brothers, and me, and died. Amazingly, my mother was my mother until the end.

I love her deeply and miss her terribly.

Posted by richlee at December 3, 2005 09:47 AM