Digital Ghosts

Digital Ghosts: Memories of Momma’s last days

It has been 8 months now, almost long enough to make a baby. The memories of Momma’s passing are as fresh as the few days it took to watch her slip away. Had I known, or understood what was actually happening, I would have done things differently. She taught us how to live with her various cancers and heart disease so well, death was not a thought - not a daily thought as events unfolded.

Life is one day at a time when hospital visits are so close together. The normal life is listening to doctors tell softly spoken warnings in gentle voices that run into long sentences. Time suggested differently.

Momma's home was my home for nearly two years. I was exhausted. Each night, during Momma's sleep, I bent toward her mouth to make sure she was breathing comfortably. Not as if she were dying, just wanting her to be comfortable. One night my long hair brushed against her face and startled her. A quick visit to a strip mall salon was the effective resolution. I did not mind the short, nearly one inch, clip from the “new girl.” Hair grows back. Not a week later I was standing in front of my home town community with this ridiculous hair during Momma’s funeral.

Pictures were taken. As if we siblings were gathered for a reunion or vacation. Why? What was the point of marking the occasion? I felt like I had fought my own war. War against Momma’s diseases, war against the attacks my dearest friend, that happened to be my sister, surged upon me in public humiliation, and numbness that takes root to get one through the unthinkable.


Three days of a long week Momma left us. I did have three days but used it as a break. My dearest friend/sister traveled from many states to take Momma for yet another fractured vertebra treatment. As I “rested," trusting all was well, my sister staged a movement of Momma from my home; undermining the fact I could understand her needs and disregarding that twice a week nursing visits never detected problems in the home, problems with Momma's care or Momma’s own need for removal.

I will write about those days. But they are too raw still.

My sister used my own fight against Parkinson's in order to make Momma’s care a primary sacrifice on her own part. Tools that were used to stop me from talking to doctors were: betrayal, overbearing our hospitalized, weak mother and manipulation with the hospital staff -having them call her "Doctor" when she holds a PHD, not a medical degree.

What need did my sister have to push, twist and manipulate hospital staff to call her “Doctor” in a medical environment when her PHD is in Political Science? Maybe that is the root. Political Science, the science of spin. The spin master in her that made all to see, in her own world, that only she was the one person that fit the imediate cause.

Eight months is only measured by seasons changing. I still can close my eyes, feel her presence, hear her breath; her oxygen machine can still be heard humming in my memory. The hole in my heart still aches as I think of standing at Momma's open grave. There is a gap, a loss of my most prized friend/sister as I witnessed a dark side she had never shown me.

Maybe the camera was my sister's shield, a tool. The pictures were proof of a bond with the family she helped raise; colorful digital images that are the true ghosts at our Mother and Father’s graveside.



My shoes are tied today. I can tie them myself. It is a good moblity day. Stress from Momma's passing has not waned. Stress of betrayal has not waned. My medicines help me, just as they helped me while caring for my Mother.