Danielle Ramos

In the first year after Mom crossed over, I didn’t know how I’d lived for 365 days without her.

One year without hearing her voice, saying “I love you, baby.” It still breaks my damn heart.

As a child, we lived with my Nanny and when I was seven, she had a stroke in the bathroom doorway one night. I woke up to a blaring ambulance and my mom collapsing into sobs as she frantically performed CPR on her mother.

Mom’s medical knowledge was on par with any doctor, often exceeding many doctors. She knew what was happening to my Nanny.

I trailed behind in a police car along with my sister and followed the ambulance that my mom was in with my Nanny as it rushed to the hospital ER entrance. The flashing lights all abuzz reinforced my idea that it was just a dream. If only.

After that night, Mom visited Nanny every night after work, while my sister and I stayed in the hospital lobby. On one long night, Mom told Nanny, who had been lying unconscious for several days, that she had to get us to bed. And she told us that Nanny somehow signaled for her to go home.

My Nanny died just hours later and Mom remained guilty for leaving her side.

But I knew my Nanny, and she would never, ever have wanted Mom to see her leave the earth. Mom was such a tender soul and she loved her mother beyond words.

Almost forty summers since losing Nanny, Mom was in the hospital mostly unconscious for nearly two months. My Dad, sister, and I, along with her doctors, tried to move heaven and earth to get her better.

We had a crew of specialists on her case. New questions daily for each doctor and nurse we saw. We researched blood levels, scans, rare and similar cases, always trying to find an answer that would lead us out of this nightmare.

My Dad, my sister, and I played music and watched TV together each day, all the while holding her hands, telling stories, and telling her how much we loved her. A few hours before Mom left this earth, I hugged and kissed her.

She had hung on much longer than doctors expected, defied many odds, and had fought with all the strength and fortitude she had. But every system in her body had been through so much. It was breaking down.

I knew it was time for her to let go, and also knew that leaving us was the hardest thing she ever would do. Before I left her late one Friday night, just as I had done so many times during that week, I whispered the words that she so freely graced me with countless times before: “You’re a great daughter and a wonderful mother and great wife and I love you so much.”

Six hours after I left, Mom transcended to go be with her own Mom.

And I felt like I should have stayed.

I should have done more. I should have not left her side. I should have not let her be taken out of ICU and into hospice. I should have demanded every doctor in that place to get in a group and figure out how to make her better.

I should have…

Years later, I honestly don’t know what I should have done because I did everything I could. We all did … the whole summer. My dad, sister, and I went over every single test, chart, and procedure, and constantly grilled every specialist. But in the end, nothing worked and our beautiful, loving, sweet, wonderful Mom was taken from us and there was nothing any of us could do.

I think of all the people who’ve been snatched away due to COVID. I’m so grateful that I was able to have so many last days with her and hear her tell me how much she loved me before she slipped deeper into unconsciousness.

I think of how Mom lost her mom when she was ten years younger than I was when I lost her, and I feel so thankful for those ten years. And I remember Mom’s cancer battle sixteen years prior and how I could have lost her then, too.

The truth is, I am the luckiest person to have had her at all.

I think of how many times Mom would burst into tears thinking of my Nanny. Even as an adult I didn’t understand how you could still ten or twenty years later feel so sad. Of course, now I understand on a gut level.

Yet Mom tried to have fun and enjoy her life anyway, knowing that she wanted to give my sister and me the very best lives she could. If you met my mother, you always felt better after leaving her company. That was a fact. She kept her deep heartache inside while she tried to brighten everyone else’s life.

I’ve looked through hundreds of photos of Mom. Her beauty and strength are apparent throughout her entire life.

It’s also evident that Mom lived life to the fullest. Taking flying lessons and vacationing with my Dad. Attending every single event her grandkids had. Adopting dogs, making new friends everywhere. Lending an ear, and shedding tears for whatever struggle any of our family was going through. She celebrated occasions big and small, making us each feel special. And she prayed for all of us when we needed it the most.

When I’m having a bad day, I remind myself that Mom was so strong that she managed to fight for her best life here on earth as best she could. That may be the very hardest thing to do, to keep going when you just want to shrivel up into a ball and forget about the world.

After her mom died, Mom went on to have decades of new experiences. There were many memorable moments and sheer fun with my sister and me, and then each of her grandchildren. There were also countless beautiful, exciting, and tender days with my Dad, her Dan, the love of her life.

Almost five years later, I still have weepy days. Now they are becoming more intermingled with times when I know she is at peace and finally with her mom and brother after all these years. When I think of her seeing my Nanny again, I feel so thoroughly happy for her.

Even through the pain, I know she is still with me and each of us, maybe not in the way that we can see her or hug her, but one day we will.

Love may transcend, but it’s always there, like when the song that Mom loved suddenly comes on the radio. It’s there when I look at one of my kids, and hear her say what I know she would have said if she were here.

Sometimes when my Dad does too much, I hear her reprimand him to get down from the ladder or sit down and rest.

Often, I simply feel her console me when the tears can’t stop falling.

Grief is the price you pay for loving so deeply. Few people love as fiercely as my Mom. Lucky for me, she taught me all I know.

And here’s what I know: We will all be together again one day. And love never, ever dies.

Death Is Nothing At All
By Henry Scott-Holland (1847–1918)

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.

Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.

Call me by the old familiar name.
Speak of me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
What is this death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just round the corner.

All is well.
Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!