I Wanted to Be Proud of Myself When My Mother Died

Hello, hello, it's, uh, Chris Plachy. Welcome to the CEO Stage and another car chat. So, um, I've been thinking about this podcast for a few days, and those of you who are on my mailing list or follow me on Instagram will know that my mom passed away, uh, on Sunday, September 27th. Um, she was home, she was on hospice. She has been unwell since April. She's been unwell for years with heart failure, but, uh, it really progressed in April. And then, um, and then really, like, she was— I was with her on the Saturday before The week before, she was really fine. We spent 5 hours together with my oldest son, and we laughed, and, and he looked through her atlas, and she told him all the places that she had been. Her mental, you know, her cognition for 88 was better than mine. She remembers everything. Wow. She told stories. We did. We had a lovely visit. And then her sister came to visit. Her 85-year-old sister came to visit the next day. She watched my daughter's soccer game. And then she had some friends visit Monday and Tuesday. And then Wednesday, she just didn't want to wake up. She was not herself. She was slurring and sluggish, and I asked the nurse, I said, you know, are we— did she have a stroke? Like, she said, no, her body's just shutting down. And so the nurse talked to her about that and explained that to her and said, this is what's happening, Jane. Your body is shutting down. And she was still lucid even though she couldn't really talk. Right. She said she wasn't scared, and we had a hospital bed ordered, and we got her in her bed in her cute little cottage in her living room. And, um, that was Thursday. Friday was uncomfortable for her as her body really, you know, did what it needed to do. And the reason I'm recording this, you guys, is I want to Yeah. One of the things that I have found frustrating as an adult is how little we talk about the truth about being a human. You know, it's fascinating to— I remember feeling this way when I was pregnant with my first son. I was like, how does— how has it been that there have been thousands and thousands and thousands of years of people having babies. And no one's talked about this, the stuff that I'm noticing that's happening to me. Like, why don't— why are we not normalizing these conversations? And, um, and I just find that to be true in so many ways, you know. I know when our— my kids were older and they were in high school, everybody was having lots of problems. And especially our generation of kids, they were really struggling with mental Illness and overwhelm and identity and all these parents were suffering. Nobody was talking about it. And so I just went through this experience of being at my mother's side as she passed. Come on. And, you know, I think it was beautiful. Like, how fortunate for her. We were we were there. We were holding her hand. My dogs were there. My little dog wanted to be with her. He was so interested in laying next to her. It was so beautiful. It was hard. It was sad. But it was it was beautiful. And I don't think a lot of us get that. I know that their death is not always beautiful. I have not. In any way trying to invalidate the challenging and traumatic experiences that people have had. So please understand, I know that. And I know that there are people who pass away much too early that we think they should. And, you know, an 88-year-old woman passing, we all can sort of say, ah, okay. But, and also, like, the body knows what to do. Just like in labor, that's— that was what it equated to me in my mind as I was watching this go through, happen. I was like, oh, so because when I went into labor with my child, with my son, because I gave him— I gave a natural delivery with him, my body, I— there was nothing I could do. I was telling my husband, I want to go home, I want to get in our bed. Yeah, no, you're gonna have a baby. Your body's in charge, and watching someone's body shut down, body was in charge. Body knew what to do, and it was when she released that that she was peaceful. And so I I'm talking about this because people have said to me over now this this past you know almost two weeks. You seem like you're okay. You seem like you're really grounded. You You seem okay. And I am. I have had incredibly sad moments. I have cried very hard. I was fine, I was through, and then I wasn't. I had a whole day, several days after she died, where I sat in her chair. I stayed at her house the whole week after she died by myself. And I talked to her every day and sat in her chair one day and just cried and ate a cheeseburger and ice cream and just, you know, watched murder shows all day. Like, that was— I just needed that day. Okay. But I want to talk to you about— well, I have so many things that this is sort of triggered for me to think it through and to share, and much less about people dying and much more about how we live and we live with one another. I was raised by my mom from the time I was 7. She was a single mom. She had to figure it out in the— that was 1977. She couldn't get a credit card. She needed help. She said a friend of hers gave her money. She got a job. And she was— it was a pretty good job. And, and she, she was not afforded so much of the ease that so many of us have. Right. As women now. But there were struggles between she and I my whole life. And I bore a lot of that struggle because I I felt responsible for my mom emotionally. I felt like I had to take care of her emotional health. That was just something I sort of assigned to myself as a little girl. Right. And that grew over time as tremendous amount of resentment, burden, anger. And as I grew older and I developed my own family, I got very frustrated that I always had to think about my mom? Like, how do I include my mom, you know? And I don't blame her for that. I don't hold resentment anymore for that. But that was very real for me. And I struggled. And I always had this horrific fear as an only child. About what my responsibility would be when she did get— Old. And unable to care for herself. I lived in— I really did have tremendous fear. I was afraid she'd have to live with us. I was afraid that we'd all go broke taking care of her because she didn't save a lot of money. Um, I just had a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of thoughts. I went to a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of therapy. So, um, I did not have— and when I say I, I mean me. My mother loved me. She was, uh, in many ways, like, very lovely. She do— she had things that she did that were hard for me. And but at this point in, in my relationship with her, it isn't And it isn't useful anymore. The past isn't useful anymore. What is useful is what happened when she got sick in April. I made a decision. So this is— I'm telling you this because I coach people every single day who find themselves in circumstances they don't want to be in. All of us do. It doesn't matter what it is. All of us do. And I've been in a lot of those. And I have made different choices. But now this one, I— when my mom was in the hospital in April, I chose— I mean, I told my husband, I told my girlfriend, and I told my coach, I want to be proud of myself. I want my future self to feel proud. Of how I managed myself through this moment, through this time. And so I chose that to see what was factual, which is an elderly woman who I love, who is my mother, is frail and scared and needs help, and I'm going to help her. And the majority of the month of April I spent— In Berkeley. In Berkeley. She was sent to a nursing facility. I was with her there. I was having tantrums like you can't believe on the backside of this with my husband, with my aunt, with my coach, just letting it all out. I was so overwhelmed. I was so angry. I was so I was furious with all of the things that I had to figure out that she hadn't figured out. You know, I just went through all of that, but I consciously chose to be proud of who I was and how I showed up with and for her. And in a different podcast, I'll probably talk to you about what happened to my business at the same time. And so then we got her home. And I got her home. I got her home on all the things. We had everything set up. We had hospice set up. Everything was great. And of course, by the time she got home, she did what so many terminal patients do. She rallied. She was feeling better. She was moving better. She was eating better. And my mom, as I said at the beginning of this podcast, never lost a moment of her memory. Like, she— that woman Knows everything, remembers everything. And so she had all her intelligence, right? But what happened through the course of her, her illness is that people started to make decisions for her, including me. And then when she got home, there was, there was this weird thing happening where she was relying on me at a And other people to help make decisions, but she didn't want anybody else to make decisions. So she got kind of mean to people, including me. Which is now, as I see it, is all these different stages of grief, which I think she was going through. And I think we were in denial or bargaining at that point. I'm not really sure, but I was like, whoa, okay. And so We had sort of a final. It was nothing big deal. It was no big deal, but for me, it was like, oh yeah, no, I'm not trained up. Was the day she told me I should fire her nurse. Now, for you all who know me and you've listened to all of my podcasts, I'm like, why are we firing her? And she said, because she's just no good. And I'm like, mom. If we're going to fire people, we need evidence. We need facts. She didn't have any. She just didn't like her. And that was when I thought, oh, okay, this is the part where I'm going to show up as me. Be proud of me, right? Yeah. Because if I had just sucked that up, I would have been so angry. It would have been our pattern. My mom was very good at telling people what to do. Eh? And I told her I would not be doing that anymore, and that she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself and arranging for care, and that she could handle all of those things. And I think it would be really good for her to get back her own independence, take back her own personal agency. Like, it must be really frustrating for you. To be so intellectually capable, physically not, but intellectually, I think you should, I think you should take it on. And of course she didn't respond to that in any way. And my good friend Brooke and I talked because I was like, well, she hasn't responded to me after I kind of told her she could have it all back. And she said, well, just what would you do normally today on a Tuesday? I said I'd probably just call her and see how she's feeling. She's like, no, just do that. Why you gotta be— you don't need to be mad. You don't need to take it with you. Like, you're right. No need. I called her and we just picked right back up. And then for the next 7 weeks, I watched my mom bargain with her health, bargain with whether or not she should really even be on hospice, making all these hoop-de-dos, seeing all these people, trying to substantiate that she should get off hospice, but her health just kept declining. And my message to her kept being, when you need me to step in, I am here. But until then, you've got this. Yep, I did. Because even a couple weeks before she passed, she was struggling to find somebody to care— to come to the house to care for her. So I stepped in. And hired someone. And then, of course, she hated this person. Of course she did. And in, in the interim of me going and hiring someone to come in, uh, for the 2 days that she needed help, she had already contacted all her contacts and made arrangements anyway. It was just like so typical of how things turned out. So why am I telling you all this? I'm telling you That no matter the circumstance, you get to decide. You get to have choice. She took— she had choice too, right? And she was asserting herself. She wanted choice. She wanted to choose how to navigate this time in her life. And she was fortunate because she could. I believe that. I know a lot of people who are my age who have parents who can't do that. And if you don't follow Grounded and Goodbye, Michelle Arant's Instagram, I invite you to because she is talking very truthfully about having parents, having a parent with dementia. She lived with that and moved through that so gracefully. But honestly, for many years with her mother. And we are so many of the people I know who are listening to this podcast, You are where I am. You are negotiating this time with your family, and if it if it isn't yet, it's coming. And we have to normalize talking about all these things. And despite how much I lived in fear for so much of my life about what would happen when my mom got old, when she really really really was. unwell, I then was able to make the choice. I have people who ask me, what am I going to do 4 years from now when I sell my business? Like, I don't know. How about we just practice living the life that you're in right now? Because that information is going to become more available to you as you get closer to it. Yeah. And so the reason that I believe I've been able to navigate this time now with my mom and be so present is the days that she led up to her imminent passing. Like, all I felt for her was love. I just wanted her to be comfortable. I wanted a cool washcloth on her face. I called her Mommy for 3 days. I've called her Mommy in how many— how long, I don't know. I just wanted to love her out. And because I chose that, I have peace. This was my gift as much as it was hers. And it's a gift to my children that I am peaceful with my mother's passing. It is the modeling I want for them because I will also not be here someday, and one of them or all of them may be a part of this process. And all 3 of my kids went through this differently, and I honored each one of their way of going through it. They each chose differently for themselves, and that was all just fine. We can't control the circumstance, but we can decide who we want to be in it. And we don't have to carry the baggage of the past with us to justify the behaviors, the choices that we make today. Make the choices you want to make today from the person that you are today. And maybe From the wisdom of a future self who actually wants to give you your best option. Okay. So I wish we spoke more truthfully about these moments. I wish that we gave ourselves a lot more grace in these moments. I wish for all of you the kind of support I've had. My clients, my friends, my family. I am so grateful. I tend to be more the giver. I'm not very good at the receiving role. And I have been practicing being a receiver. And I'm just, I am like, So touched by love, and so now that my mom's body is gone, you know what I think is so fantastic is it feels like now I get to have the relationship with her, her energy, her spirit, whatever the word is that suits for me. It feels like energy. I get to have the relationship with her energy that. I always wanted to have, but there were limitations in the body role that we were in. And I don't know why, you know, maybe that was the lesson of this lifetime. I don't know. I just know that there was always a limit for us. There was a block. There was a— there was always a— it just wasn't right. It was— it just never felt free. And now It does. And I talk to her all the time, where in my lifetime sometimes the phone would ring and it'd be her and I would dread it. But now she and I are talking all the time. I'm so intrigued by that, and I'm so grateful to that person I was in April who said, no, no, no, we're gonna lock in, we're gonna lock in. We're going to choose this on purpose. And I did. And so wherever you are, whatever circumstance you're negotiating, I just want to invite you to choose on purpose. Don't react. Don't blame. Don't defend. Don't justify. Good. Just accept the circumstance as it is. This is the truth. Now ask yourself, what would your future self say? What could you do now that would let her know and feel pride in how you moved through this moment? Okay. So I'll catch you next time.