My thoughts are consumed by the efforts to process this tragedy and the crushing pain in my body. As I start to venture outside of our home and have conversations with people outside my circle of support, it constantly occurs to me that I have lost one of my most cherished titles. I am a Wife. I am the Mother of a son. I WAS the Mother of a daughter and the Mother of two children. I have had that title torn from me. If a stranger asks me “Do you have children?” Have is present tense. I have one child. I have a son. Do I add that I had a daughter. It is not my goal to ruin their day or make it awkward.
This is what I don’t understand. If my Husband dies and I have not remarried. I have a title. I would be a Widow. Reversed he would be a Widower. Everyone knows the definition of those two words. Those are both nouns and titles. I would assume that this widow has faced significant pain, change and may now be filling the role of mom and dad for a family.
My deepest apologies to my husband; but I need to be brutally honest. In my opinion, the pain of losing a child is so much more significant. More everything. Please do not misunderstand. I would grieve deeply for my husband. There is nothing comparable to the unimaginable pain and grief associated with the loss of your child.
We created a daughter. We created another human being. She lived within my body. We focused on keeping her safe for 19 years. She had dreams to fulfill; she is irreplaceable. Trust me, I have never stood over my husband at night to check for breathing and marvel at his adorable toes and long eye lashes. The closest I have come to this activity is staring at his face while he snores and farts in his sleep. Wondering when did his nose hairs get so long.
A spouse is replaceable. Statistics on divorce prove it. Dictionary.com confirms that the bestowed title of widow or widower ends when you remarry. I am not trivializing the pain and suffering caused by losing a spouse. But when that person feels ready to have a new relationship they get an old title back. Now you can hope they learned a few things from their marriage and maybe attempt to screen out those traits from the previous spouse that may have been annoying or made life challenging. So not only do you get an actual title in between spouses, you could even have a new and improved marriage.
But what is my current title as it relates to my only daughter? It is all past tense. She was my best friend. She was physically a reflection of me. She was my kind, funny, real, thoughtful child that constantly used the word F*@k as a sentence enhancer.
But title is now past tense. She died 3 weeks ago.
Where is my new title?
I deserve a f@#$%g title. I destroyed my body and breasts in ways that make me cringe. I gave her life and nourishment. I rarely slept more than 4 hours a night for the first four years of her life. Then guess what, her brother was born and it started all over again. I have literally not slept 8 hours in a row without the aid of prescription meds or booze in 19 years. I was the “Mother of a newborn, a toddler, a preteen, a tween, a teen and briefly a semi-adult”
I put my first born on a school bus for the first time in September 2003, followed the bus and received my next titles: “Room Mom“, “Art Mom“, “PTA Mom“, “Girl Scout Mom”, and yes, the big one, “Dance Mom”.
Junior High came and we had a new favorite title, “Parent Dance Chaperones”. We decided to make embarrassing your daughter a sport. If it was an Olympic sport I would have a gold medal for sure.
My title and signature as her mother allowed her to be protected from disease by vaccinations. My title and signature on checks allowed her to have straight teeth. My title and signature on liability waivers allowed her to experience field trips, play soccer, baseball and basketball. My title signed her up for roller hockey camp in the 5th grade where she was the only girl. My title gave me the right to command her to attend all five days of that camp. I am not sure I was ever forgiven but a few boys learned that you should never underestimate someone with the title “girl”, with a hockey stick and a competitive streak.
I spent thousands of hours at dance competitions. I sat in the rain and once snow watching high school football games just to see her do what she loved for 3 damn minutes at half time. Parents, be honest, unless your kid is playing, high school football sucks. AND if your son is playing, hello, have you seen the Will Smith movie. No, not the one where he drags an alien across the desert while spewing witty dialogue and then flies a spaceship with the guy from the fly after he marries a gorgeous stripper with a well-adjusted son in a ceremony officiated by the President of the United States. You know, the movie about your growing son’s brain being permanently damaged. Google “CTE”. I sat and watched my daughter cheer for your son’s brains while freezing my ass off waiting for her 3 damn minutes on the field. That title was “Dance Mom”. There is a reality show by the same name, enough said.
I was a proud Mom when she graduated high school a year ago.
I was a sobbing mess Mom when she left for her freshman year of college.
Those are only some of my titles I have had associated with my daughter.
At around 2 am, on July 18th, while most of you slept, I watched as my daughter laid naked on a hospital bed. A nurse performed chest compressions. I screamed my daughter’s name as loud as I could while fighting to reach her side. My husband held me back, let them do their job, he said. I barely heard the code blue announced over the intercom with her room number. In an attempt to reach her, I kicked, screamed and made noises that can only be described as primitive and raw. I lost control of my bladder.
I heard hospital staff say, “is that the Mother” not “Her Mother”. I was a title to them, a noun.
After an eternity and disturbing every ICU patient on that floor with my screaming. I saw a man in scrubs come around the corner to where we huddled on the floor. He did not make eye contact. “We were able to intubate her and restore a rhythm. You can see her as soon as we finish stabilizing her. Her body is currently receiving support.” I must improvise there since that memory currently causes a buzzing sound and haze in my brain.
I was offered a wheelchair. We entered a room titled “family lounge”. That is a stupid title for that room. It should be titled “hell”.
We listened as a slow talker top neurosurgeon explained to us the grim situation. I listened from another place as he explained the 50/50 chance of her surviving the surgery to access the clot on her brain. I don’t remember him using her name. In my head, I was screaming NO over and over. I was shaking and silently telling him to get to the f@#$%^g point (as my daughter would put it). He needed to go save my daughter. Our titles, Mother and Father, gave us the right to sign the paperwork for him to try to save her.
Her body survived the surgery, but not her brain. We were asked multiple times to use our titles to sign away her rights for resuscitation. I kept saying no. I had looked in her eyes, I stood next to her, I knew she was gone. Finally, I said yes.
About an hour later as my husband and I sat privately staring at each other hoping that one of us would wake the other up from this nightmare, we talked. The privacy and quiet allowed us some clarity. Wait. She was an organ donor. I know she was. I know it for a fact. By chance we had talked about it less than a month earlier when we saw a news story about the subject on Father’s Day. She had just come home from work and we were watching the news. They told the story of 20 year old Abbey Conner and her father, Bill Conner. Bill was riding his bike from Wisconsin to Fort Lauderdale to raise awareness for Organ donation in Abbey’s honor. On Father’s Day, the young man that had received Abbey’s heart met Bill in New Orleans. Bill with the aid of a stethoscope was able to once again hear his daughter’s heart beat. We both were sniffling. I said to Hayley, “would you ride a bike across multiple states to listen to my heart beat?” Her response was “F&^k NO Mom, but I would consider riding a cute Moped”. We talked about the story, she had questions about organ donation and we both went on with our day knowing that we both believed in the giving the gift of life through Organ Donation.
The doctors had given up on her. Her life was over. Nothing more to accomplish. But they were wrong. My husband had strength that week that I had never witnessed. He rushed to find the doctor to use our titles to order resuscitation if she was to code again and asked about organ donation. Our care was assigned to two amazing women that would lead us through the roller coaster of organ donation. We trusted the care and control of her gorgeous body to these strangers. These people make miracles happen. Our daughter’s decision changed the lives of over 6 people. She was able to donate her Heart, both Kidneys, her liver and give sight to two people. There is the possibility that she will continue to change lives through tissue, skin and bone donation. Sometimes this number is nearly a 100 people. We knew that she was extraordinary. But she stopped other families from suffering the pain that we were. It was HER choice. As her parents it was our duty to honor her choice and make it happen.
For 5 nights, our titles gave us the power to make decisions that would impact the lives of strangers. We would not leave that building until our daughter did. Each night we had to decide if we were strong enough, was she strong enough to go one more day to allow her heart to grow stronger for the benefit of a total stranger. We asked tough questions.
My baby brother, well he is 38, he asked the questions I couldn’t speak out loud and took notes. Even though she was technically an adult at 19, our titles, Mother and Father, required us to make overwhelming decisions on her behalf. She had been in this magical phase of life. Not quite an adult, no longer a child. The titles of mom and dad still held deep responsibility.
Now she is gone. All my titles have ceased to exist as they relate to her. I was a Mother of a daughter. I was the Mother of two children. I was the Mother of Hayley Storm McCutcheon.
Each year new words are added to the Oxford English Dictionary, The Definitive Record of the English Language. Let me share just a handful of the words officially added to the OED in September of 2016. Moobs, Ommba Loompa, Biatch, Biffy, Cheeba, and Clickbait. No joke, see link below for the complete list.
What is my title now? Grieving mother? No that is a description. A title is a noun, something accepted and used by society. When you call a woman a widow you acknowledge that she had a spouse that has died. There is no title for the mother of a dead daughter.
Why?
I desperately need a title that acknowledges She existed and I was her Mother.
This is unacceptable. This makes me angry. This diminishes my past role.
The death of a child deserves a title.
I deserve a title. I earned it.
Yours Forever,
Hayley’s Mom