Page created by: Lori Hardin

My beloved mother passed away from end-stage Parkinson’s Disease the day after Christmas 2020. She was diagnosed at the young age of 53, younger than I am now, and battled this disease for 20 years. The end was as horrible as she always feared it would be. Actually, it was probably much worse. She fell at her home in April of 2019 and spent the remaining year and a half in a nursing home, her worst nightmare. She had fought so hard to stay in her home, but my dad, who had his own health issues, could not care for her there. After the fall, Parkinson’s robbed her of her voice. It robbed her of her mobility. It robbed her of any sense of independence: she did not have the strength to read a book, hold a phone to talk (or even just listen) to a friend, press the call button for the nurse, or even change the channel on the television. And when her nursing home locked down in March 2020 due to the pandemic, she was deprived of the company of my dad, who was devoted to her and visited every day and fed her lunch. He died unexpectedly in July 2020 and she was deprived of being there with him at the hospital when we removed life support. She was put on hospice care in the spring of 2020 so that she could be given increasingly stronger pain medication to keep her comfortable. We had patio visits in the summer and fall, and window visits and video calls as it got colder here in Wisconsin, but she was mostly alone, lying in her bed, unable to do anything to pass the time. On Monday December 21st 2020 we received the call that we would now be able to visit her in her room, as the end was near. She spent the last week of her life receiving morphine every hour to combat the pain. Every day we went to say goodbye. She slipped away in the early morning hours the day after Christmas, a holiday she cherished. I take great comfort in the faith she and I shared, that she is now with my dad in heaven, and that I will see them both there someday. But at 74, she was too young, she should have had many more years to enjoy her retirement and see her grandchildren all get married someday. The picture was taken a few years before they received the bad news, Parkinson’s for my mom, diabetes for my dad. This is how I will always remember them, not how they were at the end, ravaged by their diseases.