Almost six years ago, my sister and I were having conversations about whether or not our straight-laced Mom could have taken up smoking pot. She was mentally sharp one minute and completely confused the next. She would call at 2:00 a.m. to talk as if it was 2:00 in the afternoon. She was losing her keys, her laundry baskets, and other random objects. We knew she had a few prescriptions for things like cholesterol and high blood pressure, and we wondered if they could be causing some strange side effect.

Well things went down hill rather quickly. At one point she fell in a blow up kiddie pool while swatting a bee and then went running off down the street in her wet pajamas. She was on a very restrictive HMO plan and we had a hard time getting her young doctor, who seemed to think sixty-six year olds were in their nineties, to pay attention and approve a specialist or emergency room visit. He thought she was addicted to the Benadryl she was taking for her “allergy headaches” and had me hide all medications. In my final phone call to him he said, “If care is getting too difficult in the home, you may consider finding a facility.” I remember yelling into the phone that she was fine two weeks ago and that we were taking her to the ER!

Within hours we had some answers but not what we wanted to hear. She had brain tumors. That explained why she kept showing us and the doctor where her headaches were by dragging her hand to specific areas saying it hurts, “Here and here.”

We expected a huge team of experts to show up and tell us the plan but instead we were completely ignored. She had opted into a supplemental medicare plan which apparently meant no doctor in that entire hospital would talk to us. As we complained that she had not eaten in 24 hours and no doctor had come to see us, a grumpy nurse showed us the tumors on a computer monitor and said “These tumors will kill her. Maybe not today, but they will kill her.” She seemed to enjoy interpreting the MRI for us and offering very little hope. No doctor ever came and we quickly had her sign an “Advanced Medical Directive” as the reality set in that we were going to need to be advocates for her care–and fast!

She was transferred by ambulance to another hospital where we continued to be ignored. In total, she went over 48 hours without food or any doctor speaking to us after that initial diagnosis. Knowing that excellent care was our only hope but being stuck with terrible care was such a bleak situation. I considered calling the news to say she was dying of neglect in a hospital to see if that helped! I wanted to go back to two weeks ago and have it turn out she was indeed smoking pot! We tried to show her brave faces as she would get concerned when we raised our voices with the hospital staff. For the first time in my life I wondered, “Could she die?”

I witness the same pleas I felt back then happening to my friends and with strangers on my Facebook feed. They are asking for prayers, for love, for positive thoughts and anything that will help their loved ones as they are diagnosed with different and tragic illnesses–just as I was once asking for the same thing.

Our family outside the hospital was doing all they could to help us. They found out that St. Jude had precision surgery for brain tumors with a specialized helmet and state-of-the art facilities. Unfortunately, her insurance plan only covered regional hospitals (which is not a position you want to find yourself in!). Not covered on her plan, we could not think of any way to get her there because she was too far gone to put in a car–she had IV’s and was hallucinating anytime she was not sleeping. I wondered, what if they did not admit her without the right insurance when we arrived at a new hospital? Would she die in the waiting room?

After two miserable days of neglect, a doctor would finally speak with us but we had to leave her side and go visit him in his office at another hospital.  He said all he could do was try to “debulk” the tumors so that she had a chance to do chemo. My poor Mom was so out of it at that time our only chance was to do this surgery with the only doctor who would talk to us.

She was lead on a dolly down a dark hallway into a dingy operating room in the basement with a very old physician. I remember thinking, “We’ll be lucky to get her out of this hospital alive.”

From there things went from bad to worse. With the neglect prior to the surgery when we had been telling the nurses she needed to pee (they had ignored us), she ended up with a urinary tract infection and fever of 106. That was followed by double pneumonia. She never fully “woke up” from the surgery. She indicated she was in pain by grabbing our arms tightly and we would beg the nurses to give her more pain medicine. Finally, after two weeks we had to make the horrible decision to do a tracheotomy (feeding tube in her throat) or take her off life support. We were only given those two options. We finally decided if there was no hope, we did not want to do the tracheotomy and put her through that. There did not seem to be any sign of hope.

We gave our consent to take her off the breathing tube and IV’s so we could help her die with the least amount of pain possible in the most comfortable setting. She lasted one and a half days in a hospice facility and was gone.

Once she passed, my sister and I were left with shock, guilt and unimaginable grief. Could we have saved her somehow? Should we have seen the warnings signs of the tumors earlier? Should we have driven to a better facility even though it was not covered by insurance? And should we have put her through the surgery that did not help her but seemed to cause her great pain? It was so hard to both accept she was gone and also feel like we let her down. Her inability to communicate her needs or any final wishes really haunted us.

The year that followed was very challenging. I recently heard Madonna Badger, who has suffered incredible loss, describe what a doctor had told her. He essentially said we are attached by emotional nerves of energy to our children and to our parents and when those bonds are severed, it leaves a raw nerve. I picture it as silver energy cords that once cut are just out there exposed and flailing until they are healed.

After a little over a year had passed, a good friend of mine shared her experience with me of going to a medium to connect with her recently departed mom. She played the tape of the session for me. I was so amazed! The medium described her mom both young and old with such accuracy I had no doubt it was her. The words her mom had for her seemed so helpful and healing it brought me to tears.

Immediately after I left her house, I called my sister. We had to talk to Mom!

What I love about my sister is I can call her up with almost any crazy idea and she’s like “Go to a medium? I’m in.” Which is what happened when I told her about the tape I just heard and how I wanted to talk to our Mom.

The medium we went to is very well-known and was booked solid for several months but we waited. I wanted to go to him specifically since I had heard the tape and was impressed with the amount of detail he provided.

I was unable to think of anything else the entire week preceding our appointment. I had to know if she was okay. Had we made the right decision to take her off life support? Was there some way we could have gotten her to another hospital? Could she still hear me? In my head I kept thinking “Mom. I just need to know you’re okay.”

On the medium’s website it says to tell your loved one the time and day of your appointment. I said it several times. “Mom. If you can hear me we are going to a medium Saturday at 4:00. Please come.” I also decided to tell her something I had been wondering about after her passing to see if she could hear me. I felt she was still with me at times and I wanted some sort of validation that she could hear me from the other side.

When we got to our appointment it was in a beautiful building. We got there very early because we did not want to take any chances of not being able to find it. We were greeted by an attractive, clean-cut man, probably in his mid-thirties. He was pleasant but all business and got right to it.

He turned on his tape recorder and I turned on one that I had borrowed (I wasn’t taking any chances of not having this session recorded!). He did a brief two-minute meditation, explained his process and said “a woman is coming forward standing next to your left side. This indicates a mother figure is stepping forward.” We knew right away it was her. There may be skeptics in the world that will try to invalidate our experience, but I can tell you that first I felt her, and I KNEW it was her and immediately began crying. She came through saying, “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m okay,” possibly answering my constant, “I just want to know you’re okay.”

The medium went on to do a great job of validating that it was indeed our mother. Through him she communicated her past hairstyles, places she had lived, streets she had lived on, cars we had growing up, places she took us as children and specific memories we had together that no one else could have known. Even more exciting, he relayed events that had occurred following her passing and was able to tell the one item I had asked her to say to confirm that she could still hear me. She was also able to describe the new home I was living in and even where she likes to visit us.

Most healing for me, she was also able to alleviate my guilt in regards to her passing. Here is what the medium said about her passing and our decision to take her off life support:

“She knows that decisions were made that helped her get out of that body a little faster and what she shows me is that was an excellent decision. Yes, we could have prolonged her life, she knows that, I know you know that, but she is glad the decisions were made as they were so she could get out sooner. Your mom was all about quality not quantity. And the quality of her life was not good so she wanted to get out of that body. So the decision to pull back on treatment was the best thing for her.”

We left feeling so relieved, loved, and at peace. After that day my grief felt different. I still missed her in my everyday life, but took comfort knowing she was still with us in spirit and still able to see her grandchildren. I love to watch “Long Island Medium” for that reason. I cry through the whole show when people receive their beautiful messages through her and know that their loved ones are still with them. Knowing we can connect with our loved ones and validating that their presence is still with us, was what I needed to heal.

I knew after that day, without a doubt, that there is life after life.