MAiD Dispatches: One Year Later
My mom looked around the room at each of us circling her bed. In her left arm was the AV that would deliver the sedative to put her into a coma state and then the powerful muscle relaxant that would stop her heart. With her ability to speak having been stolen by her rare neurodegenerative disease, she said goodbye the only way she could: with a little wave. I took her hand into mine, a stone etched with the word "Strength" held between our palms. Moments later, at 11:33am, on December 27, 2024, she was gone. At peace, finally, freed from her suffering.
And I've been learning to live with that final moment and the void she's left ever since.
One of the miracles of memory, I've discovered, is that it recalibrates. The final two years with my mom were hard. They were laden with her failing body, her increasing needs, and all the strain that puts on a relationship. More often than I would have liked, I got impatient. I lost my temper. I became overwhelmed by the enormity of what was happening. While my love for my mother was always steadfast, what I had forgotten in the throes of caregiving was how much I actually like her, and how much fun we had. We cooked together, we experienced arts and culture together, we travelled together, we laughed together. Those times, the happy times, have come back into focus as this year has passed. It's given me peace to find my way back to them.
On the year anniversary of her passing, I wanted to be in nature at the time of her transition (which, it has never been lost on me, is a double angel number). Toronto had been pummelled by a storm on Boxing Day, and as a dear friend and I made our way along one of the paths hugging the shore of Lake Ontario, everything was encased in glittering ice, creating a magical winter landscape that felt utterly otherworldly.
As 11:33am approached, I squeezed the stone I was holding inside my mitten, the "Strength" stone that had anchored us both in her act of ultimate bravery. I bent to duck beneath a snow-laden branch and caught a glimpse of red in my peripheral vision. A cardinal. It flitted from tree to tree beside us on the trail. My mom and her birds. She collected them, and birds have appeared to me at tender moments in my grief journey — my mom's energy, I'm convinced, reminding me she's with me always, loving me still.
It's a presence I cherish especially because being a MAiD caregiver is such a uniquely impossible journey. Even when there is not a shred of doubt that it's the right choice. The emotional landscape of knowing the exact day and time you will lose someone whose love has anchored your life, of participating in bringing that moment in time about, is an extraordinarily complicated one. And with the logistics of death now squared away, it's one I'm really just beginning to explore.
In the meantime, on this one year anniversary, it's a cardinal that reminds me the cosmic web of which we are a part is a beautiful mystery. It works in ways that defies the logic we cling to but speaks in enigmas our indomitable hearts have the capacity to understand.
