"Hospice and Christmas Trees" by Terilynn Mitchell

Hospice and Christmas Trees

On a clear day in early May, I stepped out to my patio for a fresh breath of morning. I felt both drained and edgy, like when you arise after a fitful night’s sleep. My mind geared into overdrive as I gulped my coffee. Since putting my mother in hospice two weeks earlier, I’d been besieged with the unending phone calls — setting up nurse and social worker visits, getting a priest out to give Mom the Sacrament of the Sick, training her caregivers in new hospice protocols, and informing family and friends of this latest development. Everyone wanted to come see her before it was too late.
Five years earlier, I had taken over managing my ailing mother’s care, and, with the medical equivalent of duct tape and baling wire, we had pulled her back together. At times I felt swallowed up by the needs of the woman who brought me into this world. Now that we were in the home stretch, my job was more complicated. Instead of keeping her alive, I was giving her permission to let go gracefully. The heroics and miracles were coming to an end. Her heart was failing.
In a way, I welcomed this new flurry of activity as it helped me dodge the touchy issue of mortality. Sure, I had unresolved issues with my mother, the kind that could only find clarity in quiet moments at home with my journal and a cat in my lap, or in my therapist’s office. The task of coming to a certain peace with the past was entirely up to me; I knew that. It was up to me to find closure. But still, I didn’t like to think of Mom as dying. We never outgrow our Mommies.
I needed a day off, and today was destined to be just that. I noticed that the dwarf Christmas tree I’d bought six months earlier looked neglected. It was the first holiday tree that I’d braved in more than ten years, now that my cats were too old to foment destruction. I drove to the local nursery to learn what I needed to do to keep my foliage alive and well. I was a veterinary nurse and something of a scientist when it came to animals, but when it involved plants my IQ dropped a few notches. I found a young worker and asked for someone who knew everything about plants.
The man led me to Sarah, a young woman with a comfortable, authoritative presence. Sarah’s calm, clear, blue eyes struck me. She looked like someone who didn’t have a single sorrow lurking beneath the surface. She reminded me of my old self, when I was working in veterinary hospitals. I felt a wisp of sadness, but quickly snapped myself back to the issue at hand.
I told her about the little tree I’d bought at her store in December. It was turning brown. She asked if it was a Korean fir.
“I think it is an Asian dwarf,” I told her.
“You’ll need to repot it using an acidic soil,” she said. I tried to imagine pouring vinegar on my tree. Seeing my panicked face, Sarah pointed me to the bag of soil that would be best for my tree.
She told me about a green-tea mix I could blend into the soil and asked what kind of fertilizer I was using.
“Fertilizer?” I stuttered.
Sarah smiled. “You’ll be fine.”
I wondered if she was right. She proceeded to guide me on how to save my little tree. I bought the special soil and a new pot and went home. Oddly, this was the most hopeful I’d felt in a while.
My mother lived nearby, having moved up to Northern California from Laguna Beach of her own will some time ago. Her sister and two close friends had died recently, and she wanted to live closer to three of her four children. Her grip on things was slipping, and her health was on a dangerous downhill slide. When she first decided to move, I joined my younger brother in finding her a new apartment in a senior community, then I flew to Southern California to get her packed up for the move. She was hospitalized three times during this transition. Along the way, I quit my job at a veterinary hospital — this was going to take a lot of time.
“I don’t think I’ll live long enough to make the move,” she told me at one point.
“I don’t see that happening,” I lied. “We’ll make it.” I could only hope so.
We had to roll my mother onto the plane in a borrowed wheelchair, but she made it on the flight and, in fact, made it through the next five years. At times I wondered if the time I spent on her was worth putting my own life on hold. I had begun to feel oddly trapped. Was I selfish for thinking this way?
Returning home from the nursery that day in early May, I looked at the tag that still hung on my little tree. It was an Alberta spruce, not at all an Asian dwarf as I had thought. Would this change the treatment plan? Sighing, I repotted it anyway, enjoying the fresh air on the patio and taking pleasure in feeling free of the constant vigilance I ordinarily maintained. I needed this break from caregiving, and I enjoyed wallowing in the beauty of my garden and seeing my little Christmas tree standing proudly in its new container.
There was I time I might have called my mother to tell her about my tree. She had always been my best audience. We would have laughed at my misidentifying the fir. She would have offered her own advice regarding the tree, being a seasoned gardener herself. But I had been robbed of my playful mother by a combination of dementia and morphine.
I thought back to a time in my thirties, when I was involved with theater and took an improvisation class. Everything I learned in those classes helped prepare me for the uncertainties of life. The instructor told us the safest place was on the edge. I understood that more lately, as I aged. Stand back and you’ll miss the whole show, but take care not to go overboard. In my early sixties now, I stood on multiple precipices. My mother was going to die soon, and I didn’t know what I would do afterward or how I would re-enter my world of veterinary care. I knew this much: be alert, think on your feet, take the hand you’re dealt, and run with it.
Twinkie, my nineteen-year-old cat, came outside just then and brushed against my leg. I smiled and reached down to give her a scratch behind the ears. Inside, the phone began to ring. Twinkie looked up at me with her enormous, emerald green eyes.
“They’ll leave a message,” I told her. And I picked her up and held her close.

Terilynn Mitchell

Terilynn Mitchell is a licensed veterinary nurse who has cared for unadoptable animals for over twenty-five years. She has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, as well as other literary journals. Now sixty-five years old, she is putting finishing touches on a book about her rescue and hospice experiences. She is based in rural Northern California.

Headshot: Jean Von Trende

Photo Credit: Staff