Pictures of my Mother: the final months

Mom, September 2012

Ever since my mother fell last May and entered the final phase of her life, the rapid decline that ultimately brought about her recent end, I have taken pictures of her nearly every time I have visited.

There was that constant feeling of "Maybe this is the last time..." and I wanted to document her final months, wanted to capture what was fleeting, what I knew would soon be gone.

I always had my phone with me, outfitted with intstagram, a documentary minded person's perfect tool these days. And thus I snapped away.

I captured her in her many moods: happy, sad, contemplative, playful, lost, loving, sleepy - often sleepy. But always beautiful. And always her own unique self, an iconoclast, not just another garden-variety old lady, for sure.

The folks who worked in the nursing home grew to love my mother, were deeply grieved to hear she was gone. "She was one of a kind" they said, and it's true.

Mom, September

Out for a drive, October, 2012

This weekend it was very hard for me to look at pictures of my mother. They made me so sad. I kept thinking: "This is it. There will be no more photos" and, even, harder, "I will never see her again, except in these pictures and memory."

Mom, September 14th, 2012

But I wanted to finish this post, share these pictures of the last months of my mother's life. So I pushed past the wall of pain, late, middle of the night while the boys were sleeping so they wouldn't see me crying.

Mom in the hospital, June 2012

November, 2012

Mom on her 90th birthday, September, 2012

Fallen, August 2012

July, 2012

Telling mom not to pick the flowers just made her want to pick the more. She always loved to nick bits of plants - from woods, parks, neighbors, garden stores, botanical gardens - and bring them home to root and grow. She had a wonderful green thumb and nurturing living things made her happy.

July, 2012

Mom, Thanksgiving 2012

Even in pain, she always looked at me with such love, so much adoring in her eyes. No matter how terribly her mind was dissolving away, of this she was rock solid sure: we loved each other.

Mom, June 2012

This is the last picture I took of my mother, alive, the day before she died:

Mom, January 16th, 2013

She wouldn't open her eyes that day, or the next (her last).  She was becoming very sleepy; already starting to drift away, I believe.

Mom, January 3, 2013

But I'd rather remember her like this, the sparkle of love in her eyes, smiling for the camera, for me.